The Forge Archives

Kester Pelagius started an interesting thread, Is religion really that much of a mystery?, which inspired this one rather by accident. Jack Spencer Jr., an avowed atheist, posted what I found to be a highly offensive declaration of the nineteenth century evolution of religion idea (a time at which evolution was so popular a theory that every field had to find a way to apply it to itself) that I was eager to object; and when Reverend Daegmorgan, a known Pagan, objected, I, an identified Christian, was ready to say Amen--and then Ron, quite rightly, killed that discussion before I got there. I read the rest of the thread with interest.

But then, Jack and Raven had started something in the back of my head which is still brewing, and I'm wondering if it would help the religion discussions at all to put it forward. Jack thinks that religion is about man inventing explanations for what he doesn't understand. Raven thinks that man is discovering something of a spiritual reality that is there. I think that God is revealing truth to man. Each of us has very different attitudes about religion because of that; but that's not the point here. The point is that all of those methods, and maybe another, could be used to create realistic religions in the game world. After all, one of the best ways I've found to build a city, or a dungeon, is to go back to what was there before there was anything, who started it, what they built, who came and changed it and why, and how over the history of the world this place was expanded and altered to become what it is now. Why shouldn't that work for religion?

Let us start with Jack. We will sit down and think of our imaginary peoples. What are their hopes? What are their fears? Let's have them project those hopes and fears into anthropomorphic deities. The old pattern, as I recall (the evolution of religion as conceived in the nineteenth century), suggested that the earliest religion was animism, as primitive man started to think that all the things around him, from animals to plants to rocks and rivers, had a consciousness like himself, which he identified as a spirit, and so attempted to communicate with the spirits of these things. Over time, the spirits of the greater things--the sun, the sky, the river, the earth--became the greater spirits, and we evolved into polytheists. Polytheism then became henotheism, the belief that these other gods are real but that this people belongs to this one god (although Israel is cited for this, Philistia and other kingdoms of the age are probably better examples). Henotheism becomes monotheism, as the other spirits are discounted as not really gods, perhaps not really spirits (or it becomes pantheism, in which all the spirits are considered expressions of one spirit). If we take this as true in our game world, we can build a variety of different religions based on different starting points. Desert people are afraid of drought; river people are afraid of floods; northern people are afraid of cold. The fears might be earthquakes, volcanic eruption, ocean flooding--using this as a starting point, we create a religion that evolved from the feelings of people.

Reverend Daegmorgan doesn't think reality is like that. (Of course, I don't either, but we'll go with him next.) If I understand correctly, he sees these spiritual issues as undiscovered reality, aspects of our universe that we don't know. The process of developing religion is one of discovering what's really out there. We get it wrong sometimes, or we see the same thing in different ways. This, too, can be a developmental approach to creating religion. We establish a few core concepts of what the spiritual realities are, and then we start to explore how these, discovered in fragments, are understood by the people. Different people will understand the same things differently, in part because they have different physical realities to analogize it, in part because they're asking different questions based on their situations. Thus starting from a fundamental spiritual reality and then allowing that people have gotten glimpses of this and tried to fill in the gaps from what they knew, we again develop a set of varied religions.

My view is that there have been divine revelations, that is, from time to time God has given man a bit of information about what the supernatural realm is like. But I'm not thinking in terms of ongoing revelation, really--I'm thinking in terms of historic revelation, that at particularly moments in the past God or the gods gave the world some information about themselves. Religions then are built from these revelations. But not everyone got all the revelations. Some are still building from the first one, others got them all. Even between people with the same amount of revelation, there's a lot of disagreement. Part of that is that not everyone has this revelation written down, or written down the same way. Part of it is that whatever is written down, people have to try to figure out what it really meant, and there are disagreements about this. So again we are able to create a variety of religions, this time branching out from each other as they understand the revealed truths differently, and accept or reject new revelations, as well as apply what they know to the very different parts of the world they are in.

I said I could see a fourth approach. This is the idea of ongoing revelation. We have a world in which gods are real, and they speak to people. That always complicates the religion question (because it is so much more evident, and immediate revelation means few doctrinal arguments within the sect). But this can work, too. For one thing, different gods might have different ways of explaining reality to their people without actually lying about it--you can say "it's like this", and have it be "like" something very different from what another god said it was "like", and both be right, because you're trying to analogize things beyond human experience to things within human experience. It's also perfectly reasonable for a deity to refuse to answer your questions if he answered the same questions for your great-great-great-great-great grandfather; the man should have written them down, or at least told them to someone, and if in the passing of the tradition from generation to generation it gets distorted, that's not the point. So again, we can construct our world religions from how they formed.

I don't know that these are mutually exclusive views. In fact, I have no problem with seeing them as all real-world explanations for the variety of faiths in the real world--some evolved, some were discovered, some revealed. But the point of what I'm suggesting is that building religions in one or more of these ways, as an exercise in historical creation, might create more realistic and integrated religions.

Thoughts?

--M. J. Young

It sounds plausible, in terms of generating valid output, but I'm not sure its doable.  We've stepped on a lot of toes and heard a lot of squeals already; I for example found Jacks analysis uncontroversial and Ravens counterpoint as offensive.  I can't imagine that any believe would fail to be offended by my honestly held opinion of religion, which is why I have not discussed it publicly as yet.

I don't think I could play a Catholic without a How To manual, a serious precis, of Catholic dogma and praxis.  But I cannot see how such a work could fail to be polemical.  And I could certainly expound upon my vision, and how I see it accomodating the observed phenemonon, but again I cannot see how that would fail to be polemical.

IMO, the frailty of game religions occurs in large part becuase of the polemical implications of any serious exposition.  I agree that fully following any one of the conflicting analyses would produce more plausible religions than not following any model, but it seems to me that player consent would be hard to obtain.

Awesome post, M. J. I think that idea could be applied to any creative venture, not just RPGs. I don't usually bother including religion in any of my RPGs, but such an approach would be really useful for writing fiction.

Gareth, I think that the problem is not as overwhelming as you make it sound. Maybe it is if you want to accurately play a catholic priest... but for creating a religion you don't have to do that. Most role-playing entities are not as complex as their real counterparts - they're stylized (and perhapse idealized) representations of them. A game religion doesn't have to be as vast and complex as a real world religion. It only needs to have the appearance of realism. If, based on real world perceptions, we accept that such a religion *could* exist in the imagined reality, then that is sufficient for causality. (IMO, this entire discussion is a matter of causality. If it isn't, D&D religion works just fine. :)

Quote from: M. J. YoungJack thinks that religion is about man inventing explanations for what he doesn't understand.

Actually Jack thinks that religion is about man find comfort and/or security and/or peace with the inventing explanations being one and admittedly simple example thereof.

I wasn't very clear in the referenced post, I guess. It disturbs me that it spawned another thread like this, but I'm used to misspeaking and ticking people off like that.

I had offended you and I appologize. I feel I should point out that I am only posting this response because I *could* feel likewise offended. (The nineteenth century? Yes that is out of date) but I'd rather not have the conversation go that way. It did feel like you were putting words in my mouth, but I really can't get mad because, well, I did say that didn't I? Regardless of what I may have meant.

The same thing brewing in the back of MJ's head started brewing in the back of mine, I just didn't jump on it yet. Let's assume the various approaches to religion are all valid starting points for reference.

In doing so, we must also remember that each of these starting points will color our resultant religions according to it. However, I'm not sure the real question is how to go about making a "realistic" religion, but rather, how to give religion meaning in a game.

Not actual religious meaning, but meaning in its importance to the players. After all, we can sit and talk all day about how something should be important to a character given this or given that about their culture or society or background...but ultimately, if the player doesn't invest in the idea, the idea is meaningless and has no impact.

Quote from: M. J. YoungRaven thinks that man is discovering something of a spiritual reality that is there.

Well, that's not quite it. Let's forego the existance of a supernatural reality entirely and assume the gods, real or imagined, exist as cultural icons: that is, they are the measures and references by which a given individual (and society) lives their life.

To take a modern example, one might deify Michael Jordan in this fashion: choosing to live like, be like and behave like Mr. Jordan because they see some ultimately superior way of life and being in doing so.

Thus the gods are cultural guides or iconic reference points towards which one aspires: emulation is the key.

This might tie nicely into mechanics for the game: emulation of your chosen diety (or rather, a chosen deity) results in bonuses, special abilities, or what-have-you that are not otherwise available without.

The Faith benefit in 7th Sea is a different handling of the idea of faith. As John discussed in another thread (which escapes me at the moment), you can take it for your character, but you do not know what it will do, if anything!

In a game where the gods are more active, real and walking-the-earth (such as D&D) this can be expanded to something like the Devotion (http://www.daegmorgan.net/rpgs/faith.php) skill I created for my own D&D campaign.

(I also created a complimentary Superstition skill to serve a similar purpose for non-religious beliefs in the supernatural, but that's a different discussion)

Such methods create a sense of the benefit of prayer and devotion for the player of a character in a game world; by making religion central to the mechanics, or beneficial to the character, one makes it central to play experience.

This may seem utterly "gamist," but it isn't; this is the old coherency trick used prominently by Sorcerer: make the (important) mechanics about what you want the game to be about, or what you want to be important in the game.

And one thing we've avoided discussing entirely is game mechanics. This is a huge oversight, IMO, since (again IMO) the mechanics and the world must invariably be linked. If something is to be important in the world, it must be important in the mechanics.

So, before we even begin building specific religions, we must provide some game-base on which to construct them, rather than construct the religion, then shoehorn it into the world.

I believe the best foundation of that would be to answer the question: Of what importance does religion play in your game? (note: I have not said campaign or world) Or even, or perhaps afterwards, of what importance does (this specific) religion(s) play in your game?

Quote from: contracycleI for example found Jacks analysis uncontroversial and Ravens counterpoint as offensive.

I should definitely apologize, as I have already to Jack, for the "security blanket explanation as security blanket." That was thoughtlessly analytical of me.

The rest, however -- the facts, as they were -- I hold to since I find no reason to accept as scientifically valid (individually or personally is another story) the viewpoint I opposed. Thus I welcome any private discussion of the matter along the lines above, otherwise, let's drop it.

Quotedon't think I could play a Catholic without a How To manual, a serious precis, of Catholic dogma and praxis.  But I cannot see how such a work could fail to be polemical.  And I could certainly expound upon my vision, and how I see it accomodating the observed phenemonon, but again I cannot see how that would fail to be polemical.

This is interesting since it ties into something I'd stated to Ron about his censure of me in another thread -- a similar statement was my response; so I agree in that context, that it is not possible to adopt or correctly play impromptu a viewpoint or mindset you do not hold to.

I don't think, however, that this causes problems in building a religion in a game in which players can can find (non-religious) importance, and so "fake it" more accurately...or perhaps at that point it isn't "faking it," since the effects and importance are concretely tied to the game, creating meaning the player can latch onto.

(Again, I'm not discussing religious meaning...such as a player latching onto a game religion as real, or providing the mechanics by which he might do so.)

Hrm, I just realized that one also has to be careful to avoid the "power tools" syndrome of D&D...the importance and meaning have to come from the religion itself or the importance of the religion itself, not from the powers and abilities it grants (ie: a cleric's ability to heal and etc).

Quote from: greyormI just realized that one also has to be careful to avoid the "power tools" syndrome of D&D...the importance and meaning have to come from the religion itself or the importance of the religion itself, not from the powers and abilities it grants (ie: a cleric's ability to heal and etc).

This seems like a tricky question.  I think what you are saying is that you want to avoid having a "religious" character be purely economically motivated -- i.e. "I think we should spare his life because otherwise I might lose my powers" rather than "because it is the right thing to do".   The danger of this seems inherent in giving supernatural powers to religious characters at all.  

I can think of two obvious solutions:

• Don't give supernatural religious powers at all.  I think it is easily possible to portray religions well in a game of this sort, and it deserves some mention.  Religion can play a part in a Star Trek game just as easily as a fantasy game.  Within a fantasy game, you can have religions be background rather than mechanical powr sources.  
  
• Make the powers not worth the restrictions imposed.  So a priest gets some benefit, but could be just as effective a character overall even if he renounced his religion.  
  [/list:u]
  
  On the other hand, these aren't the only solutions.  It seems to me that one can keep religious powers without making it into pure economics.  However, I'm not sure what makes it one way or the other.

Quote from: John KimI think what you are saying is that you want to avoid having a "religious" character be purely economically motivated -- i.e. "I think we should spare his life because otherwise I might lose my powers" rather than "because it is the right thing to do".  

I would argue that for most of religious history that the former is likely the exact motivation a real worshiper would have.  "If I do this Ba'al will be pissed off and make all my goats barren...so I guess I won't do it".

This would be what I called a "mechanical" religion in another thread.

Quote from: Valamir

Quote from: John KimI think what you are saying is that you want to avoid having a "religious" character be purely economically motivated -- i.e. "I think we should spare his life because otherwise I might lose my powers" rather than "because it is the right thing to do".  

I would argue that for most of religious history that the former is likely the exact motivation a real worshiper would have.  "If I do this Ba'al will be pissed off and make all my goats barren...so I guess I won't do it".

This would be what I called a "mechanical" religion in another thread.

Yes, well, I disagreed with you there as well.  First of all, I don't agree with you about what historical people thought.  There is plenty of evidence of historical religious folk having serious issues of faith.  Of course, there were people in history who only went through the motions of religions -- just as there are folks today who only go through token motions of religion.  A person raised to believe in Baal might easily be scared into thinking he had to do sacrifices, but along with that belief was also instilled the idea that the sacrifice is the right thing to do.  

Beyond this, there is a huge difference between the historical results of sin (which were subtle to nonexistant depending on your belief) and a game mechanic which tangibly shows it as a reliable factor.

Quote from: John KimBeyond this, there is a huge difference between the historical results of sin (which were subtle to nonexistant depending on your belief) and a game mechanic which tangibly shows it as a reliable factor.

A thought struck me while reading John's post, specifically the text quoted above. That thought was: the game mechanics do not necessarily have to reflect the actual workings of the world, only the character's perception of them.

That is, when a given individual believes in something, they tend to gather evidence in support of that belief and view circumstances in a light such that the events verify the belief -- whether or not the belief is true is irrelevant to this -- that it seems to be to the individual is, however.

Hence, one could create a game mechanic around the idea that the character's beliefs are validated -- when the character acts in concert with those beliefs, her actions are validated and supported by the metagame.

Thus the character's religious perceptions do in fact matter, because they believe they matter -- or perhaps they just begin noticing these things more, and thus the things matter more because they are noticed and then capitalized upon.

To keep such from becoming simply a matter of belief, and lack any further importance, one can change the scenario slightly, so that other forces are at work upon the character, some proving stronger than the character's own beliefs and ultimately challenging or even altering those beliefs.

Take, as a pure example, my conversion to Paganism: despite my strong Christian beliefs at the time, some other "force" proved stronger than my investment in and belief in that structuring of the universe and altered those beliefs and my view of the structure.

Perhaps this might be explained by the extension of other's beliefs onto the character, who may not believe such. Whether they believe something different or have no opposing concept would be highly relevant to the outcome.

In the case of the former, whosoever beliefs are strongest wins; in the latter case, the believer wins by default, since a lack of belief is not in actuality an opposed belief (that is, you cannot prove a negative).

In my example case, however, there was no "individual" with an opposing belief extending it onto myself -- hence the GM would also set up universal forces that play a sort of tug-of-war on the characters at various times.

And I wish I had time to finish those thoughts, but it will have to wait for the moment.

I'll try to make my point again, here. It's related to the idea found in Sorcerer & Sword that it may be better to begin with no map, and create things as we come across them. I very muuch believe that this applies to religions in RPGs. That is, just like I feel that one wastes a lot of time writing up portions of a fantasy world that will never be used, only to find the players wandering into uncharted portions of that world, religions are also so complex. As such, one can use the "historical" method described above to create very good religions. We can make them all day long. The problem is that we cannot make them "complete". And to the extent that we attempt to we will be wasting much time. Players will ignore much of he detail created, and will ask questions that as yet have no answers.

So my policy is the same for both these things, nowadays. Instead of making it up beforehand, have mechanics set up to cause the religions necessary (such that they are) to pop up and become detailed as needed. There are a few obvious choices. One is to just wing things as a GM. Difficult but some people seem to be able to pull it off. Yes, even for things like religions. Better, however, is to co-opt the players. This ensures that they will be interested in the results, and makes the GM's life easier.

So, if you want, for instance a game in which the institutions of religion were well defined, you could allow the players director stance power to create such things, and, further, reward them for doing it well.

Again, I can envision other methods of "virally" producing such necessary data. I'll leave it for people to discover, but they would involve doing things like using the results of otherwise unrelated resolutions to be incorporated into the religions portrayed (somewhat like Walt's FitM example in the other thread, but perhaps more mechanical handling involved). And I'm sure others can come up with even better methods.

Paladin does it in chargen. And the game being deceloped on this forum is showing a lot of promise as well. Look to the already extant work for guidance.

Mike

Quote from: greyorm
A thought struck me while reading John's post, specifically the text quoted above. That thought was: the game mechanics do not necessarily have to reflect the actual workings of the world, only the character's perception of them.

Umm - why would you want to do such a thing?  What is the point of building mechanics which are about false internal perceptions?  The only purpose I see in mechanics is the resolution of conflict, and if someone is seeing what they want to see, there is no conflict.  The use of mechanics to support a perception instead of a shared space seems pointless to me; this might imply different mechanics for each character depending on their belief structure.

Quote
That is, when a given individual believes in something, they tend to gather evidence in support of that belief and view circumstances in a light such that the events verify the belief -- whether or not the belief is true is irrelevant to this -- that it seems to be to the individual is, however.

Sure, I concede such a thing could mechanically be built.  But what would this achieve?  Creating a game simply so we can consistently verify beliefs?  Wheres the conflict, the drama, what would characters DO in such a game?

Hi Mike,

If I blew past your point before, I'm sorry.  What you wrote above is great.  It really nails what I was trying to get at in earlier posts: That with religion we really get a chance to crack open our imaginations as we make it up as we go along.  It's completely contrary to the "Build it from the outside so we know everything" crew, and presumes that religion is a mystery to be discovered as you go.  (This may not have been your intent, but its what I've taken from it.)

This might run counter to the cliches of what "non-religious" people think of religious people ("religious people want certainty, religious people are done making the hard choices") but in fact, at least looking at M.J.s essays, you find that the work with religious devotion only opens up new questions and avenues of exploration.  In my view, true faith, like true scientific inquiry, always to expore further.

Thus, your model (parrallel to the S&Sword geography model) really nails a lot of it for me.  You start with a few details, and improvise the "logic" of myth, ritual and so on.  Now, whether you do so with the logic of an anthropologist who doesn't give a rats ass about god, or of a poet modelled after Robert Graves is up to you -- but this process seems the best starting point I've heard so far.

Thanks,
Christopher

QuoteUmm - why would you want to do such a thing? What is the point of building mechanics which are about false internal perceptions?

Ron's post (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4884&start=35) over in "Is religion really that much of a mystery?" provides a very adequate example of precisely what I'm referring to with my design statements above, and also nicely manages to answer your question and concerns with the use of such a method.

Edit: Also note, I said nothing about false perceptions versus true perceptions; only perceptions, valid or invalid. As often as not, we only begin noticing the truth when we start looking for it, and occasionally we fool ourselves, too. So there is a conflict established already, and a point -- establishing truth from falsehood, and the distinction isn't clear.

I know, I know: Cue argument about unknowables being false and thus meaningless, and the GM needing to know the truth of the matter...go read Ron's post. Obviously, in the model being talked about it simply doesn't matter whether it is known or not.

We're talking perception, here.

Quote from: Christopher KubasikYou start with a few details, and improvise the "logic" of myth, ritual and so on.

Sorry, I think both you and Mike are off, Chris.
I think what Mike describes and you support is a secondary step. I still don't see on-the-fly creation addressing the central question:

That is, in a game, one in which we desire religion to be important and more than color, how do we deal with issues of religion and faith such that they are important?

The above doesn't do that. There's no foundation mechanic to use, to build religions on a bit at a time; and just building their elements (rituals, myths, funny hats, etc.) makes them D&D-style Color if they aren't tied to the characters and the game mechanics in some important fashion.

That's the first step, beyond the excellent advice about religion being a mystery to be discovered as you go.

But without the above answer, this is like painting a blank wall and saying, "Well, I don't know what it's going to be used for, but its darn pretty!" And if that's your intent, fine; but if you actually want that wall to be useful and important in the structure, just painting it isn't going to accomplish that (nor is shoehorning the painted wall into something existing).

You have to create the barren structure, then paint the walls to make them pretty -- then your pretty painting will be more than pretty, it will be useful and important.

The game mechanics are our structure...and this is a forum about games, not modelling or story-writing, so we have to deal with the issue of religion in a game as a game element, as a mechanic, at least if we want more than Color (and if you don't, that's fine).

Actually, I don't think I disagree with you.  I don't know yet what religious elements I would want in rules yet... I'm working on that.... but you're right. There'd be rules.

But this way of looking at things, building as you go, is what I would want the rules to be about.  Remember, in almost all my posts I've been pushing not for "modelling" religions, but for cracking out heads out of dry presumptions of the way things are.  (I pushed for Puppetland, for cryin' out loud.)  So yes, at this point, it's just color.  But give me some time, pelase. ; )  This is the best entry point I've seen so far, and what I want to build on.

Christophe

One problem that worries Christopher is, if I understand correctly, that PCs have a nasty habit of wandering away from the stuff we GMs have spent days working up.  On a related note, there is the point that if we GMs write up enormous tomes on how a given religion actually works (in whatever sense), the players won't read it or internalize it.

I think the number of complex and at times heated debates about religion here strongly indicate that "taking religion seriously" in an RPG is something that will take a lot of emotional and creative energy, from players and GMs.  If your players don't give a damn, and don't want to deal with religion in their characters, then devoting enormous effort to designing the things is indeed wasted effort.  And if that's the case, you might as well come up with a more-or-less elegant "color" way to represent religion, since the players won't look terribly closely at the details.

At the same time, the fact that so many of us are willing to argue at great length about religion in RPGs suggests to me that there are players out there who would be interested in taking it seriously.  For those players, a game-world in which religion was an extremely important factor, even a dominant one, would not be out of line.  You would certainly have to tell them this in advance, and give them lots of good material to work with, but then the game contract would include their really trying to play their religous characters as religious.

Seems to me as though such a game-world would be well worth exploring.  You could spend enormous amounts of time developing really complex and plausible religions (which is not as hard as it sounds --- no really), and then let the PCs run wild.  They would stumble across things, think of things, and agonize about things, and this would lead to you to make those same religions even more sophisticated and intricate.  And eventually you'd have a world in which the religions were absolutely 100% fantasy, but they would also be entirely "real" in whatever sense.

If you ask me, mechanizing any of this is just going to drag things away from what matters.  Let the players decide what sort of activities are sinful (within some relatively clear code), and encourage them to agonize about them.  What're the mechanics for?  If they want to play religious characters, because the game-world and the campaign highlights that and they have agreed to give it a go, then they'll do all the encouraging and incentive-work that's necessary.  

Surely this is a big principle at the Forge: if you are up-front and direct about religion being central to the Premise, and the players are totally cool with that, then you can to a significant degree leave it to them to keep it so.  If you have to force people to be religious, it's probably not worth it, as it'll only get into fights about "real" religion.

Hi chleric,

Just so no one gets confused about what I'm concerned about, I delight in players wandering away from what the GM planned.  (In essence, I don't think the GM should "plan" that much -- prep, yes, plan, no.) You can see this in my writing from the Interactive Toolkit, and everything I write here.

So, in responding to Mike above, it wasn't a concern about the player wandering away, it was, "How do we help the players wander more?"

This has been one of the thrusts of this whole discussion for me across all the threads.

To answer your point about "mechanics" -- which you touched on elegantly in the other thread about your Ars Magica game -- I too share your reluctance to turn every "religious" element into a die modifier...  But that's not been my focus. My focus has been on the act of Fabulist Imagination.  The rules I'm talking about (or, being asked to consider by the Forge's actual designers, of which I don't think I am), are the mechanics of rewards for Fabulist play.  That's what matters to me.  Faith, whatever.  Yes faith, no faith.  What matters to me is genuine wierdness.  Honest to god, poetic, heartfelt, makes sense in the soul if not in the lab, wierdness.  I want the players on the toes to be creative and strange and playing along the lines of people getting off on making up stories that are not nutty-random-events, but actual tales of wonder.

That's where I'd be handing out the whatchamacallem points.

Now, I think Sorcerer could work well for this.  I believe Hero Wars (aka Hero Quest) could work well for this.  I suspect in a more mundane but really-all-the-more-cool-for-it-way Riddle of Steel could work for this (I think if you tweak the SAs correctly, the players would be focused on really cool Fabulist play).  I think Puppetland demands this.

Again (and this is not slight to anyone who's been involved in these big, literate and enganging threads), my agenda hasn't been about recreating religion, or socities with religion, or whatnot.  It's been about engendering the sensibility found in religious tales -- which is a completely different thing.

So for me, rules about focusing on the acts of religion are too narrow.  Acts of poetic creativity are getting closer to what I was shooting for lo' those many years ago back in Inphobia.

Take care,
Christopher

Chris,

First, I'm glad I was clearer here. I probably came off as dismissive in the other post, so it's no surprise that it didn't make sense to anyone.

Quote from: Christopher Kubasik
Just so no one gets confused about what I'm concerned about, I delight in players wandering away from what the GM planned.  (In essence, I don't think the GM should "plan" that much -- prep, yes, plan, no.) You can see this in my writing from the Interactive Toolkit, and everything I write here.

Heck, we all probably woudn't be here talking about this stuff in this manner if it weren't for the Toolkit. That helped inform Ron's thought, which in turn informs my ideas, etc. So I'm really just reminding you Chris to use your own ideas (albeit as expanded upon). :-)

Clerich,

I think we can assume that what we're talking about here is a game that we're designing to appeal to people who do want to play a game that has some religious overtones. Perhaps even one that is centrally focused on religion. If not, then Fang's reservation applies, and we probably shouldn't be worried about religious mechanics per se.

That said, there is a middle ground alternative. Which is to allow for general player creative mechanics and allow them to be used for religion if the player likes. That said, I'll pat myself on the back and say that Universalis, or similar games (COTEC, Aria), are already there to fill that need. Not that they can't be improved upon, however...

To get back to religion specific mechanics I refer back to Chris' post again:

QuoteMy focus has been on the act of Fabulist Imagination.  The rules I'm talking about (or, being asked to consider by the Forge's actual designers, of which I don't think I am), are the mechanics of rewards for Fabulist play.  That's what matters to me.  Faith, whatever.  Yes faith, no faith.  What matters to me is genuine wierdness.  Honest to god, poetic, heartfelt, makes sense in the soul if not in the lab, wierdness.  I want the players on the toes to be creative and strange and playing along the lines of people getting off on making up stories that are not nutty-random-events, but actual tales of wonder.

That's where I'd be handing out the whatchamacallem points.

This seems a valid take. Remember Ron's recent concept. Design a functional game, not a game that you think will appeal to some broad swath of people. If this is what Chris wants to focus on, then I think a design could be created that could accomodate this.

QuoteNow, I think Sorcerer could work well for this.  I believe Hero Wars (aka Hero Quest) could work well for this.  I suspect in a more mundane but really-all-the-more-cool-for-it-way Riddle of Steel could work for this (I think if you tweak the SAs correctly, the players would be focused on really cool Fabulist play).  I think Puppetland demands this.

I agree that these systems are set up to work fairly well for these things, but again in a more general way. One can certainly get more specific on the topic of Religion (Mysticism, whathaveyou).

QuoteSo for me, rules about focusing on the acts of religion are too narrow.  Acts of poetic creativity are getting closer to what I was shooting for lo' those many years ago back in Inphobia.

Personally, I'd like to see both. Hmmm. A more generalist game could be created where what was specifically to be rewarded was decided up front. Or we could just design quite a few games.

I have to admit that, originally, I was untinterested in the topic as a focus for a game. But now that I'm discussing it more, I'm slowly becoming drawn in by the idea. One thing that really got my attention was when Kester mentioned Dune as an example of a book from which you could glean something on how to make artificial religions. Possibly my favorite book, I agree with that insight*. Further, reading the series, one can see how Herbert is "making it up as he goes". I seriously doubt that he knew where his religions were going to go when he started. They evolved by dramatic need as the story progresses (and unlike some who do not like his later works, I am a fan of all six Dune books). The point is that I can very much see a design that investigates whatever portion of these sorts of elements that the players were interested in.

My design might start with a few precepts. There's no reason why you have to make absolutely everything up from scratch, and having a few seeds could make the play more instantely attractive (as opposed to the sometimes barren feel you get at the beginning when you look upon the blank canvas of a game that starts without any preconceptions; yes I'm talking about Universalis again). Anyhow, the players would take and investigate certain elements that relate to the preconceptions, using mechanics to reinforce the desire to do so, and simultaneously creating more information from which to work from.

To be truthful, I'd like to take Religion as only one part of the concept of Culture as a whole. Gareth and I started down this road with the Mesopotamia idea, but only got so far. Not an easy design spec, but one that I think might potentially be very rewarding. Hmmm...

Mike

*I wanted to comment on Kester's (I think) remarks about Dune's religions being mock-ups of Islam and Catholicism. They are not only based on them, they are supposed to be extensions of those same religions. Earth exists in the Dune universe, and their history is ours. Ten thousand years later. As such Islam and Catholicism are influences on the current religions of the day which are mostly infomed by an event called the Butlerian Jihad in which artificial intelligence was declared an abomination, which thus led to almost all later cultures eschewing that, and many related technologies. The most direct relationship is that Catholicism is called Orange Catholicism, and still uses a derivative bible. Islam has mutated in much more broad ways intheDune universe. Sorry, I find this stuff fascinating.

Quote from: contracycle

Quote from: greyorm
A thought struck me while reading John's post, specifically the text quoted above. That thought was: the game mechanics do not necessarily have to reflect the actual workings of the world, only the character's perception of them.

Umm - why would you want to do such a thing?  What is the point of building mechanics which are about false internal perceptions?  The only purpose I see in mechanics is the resolution of conflict, and if someone is seeing what they want to see, there is no conflict.  The use of mechanics to support a perception instead of a shared space seems pointless to me; this might imply different mechanics for each character depending on their belief structure.

First, such a system would be a very effective approach to creating a universe in which the truth really was subjective and relative. For myself, I'm always interested in exploring world concepts which are contrary to what I think (I always loved Socrates' response to relativity: "I believe you are wrong; I believe Truth is absolute, and according to your own philosophy you must believe that I am right."). I expect that play in such a world would have a strangeness to it that might just suggest reality is not like that, and that's worth discovering.

Second, I think such a system might well capture a very real phenomenon, the subjectivity of observation. An example of this will illustrate it.

Most people who work in emergency services, such as ER staff, police, ambulance crews, and psych ward personnel, will tell you that the crazies come out on the full moon. That is, if the moon is full, it affects people and causes those close to the edge to go over it and do crazy things. There have been efforts to devise scientific and medical hypotheses for why this is so, usually related to tidal forces on brain cages.

The problem is that statistically it has never been demonstrated. Efforts to show the connection have always come out with no statistically meaningful difference between activities on full moon nights and activities any other time of the month.

So why do the people who should know have it wrong?

The best explanation is a kind of subjective acquisition of data. They begin with the theory that there is this connection. Then the collect data, but filter it through the theory. Thus:

• If a lot of crazy things happen on a night which has a full moon, and someone notices the phase of the moon, it adds to the evidence.
  
• If a lot of crazy things happen on a night which is not a full moon, and someone notices that it is not a full moon, it's written off as a bad night; someone might even comment about  how much worse it would have been had the moon been full.
  
• If a full moon night passes peacefully, usually no one will notice that it was a full moon. If they do notice, they will count themselves lucky that it wasn't so bad.
  
• If the phase of the moon is noticed not to be full on a quiet night, this is remembered and added to the evidence that full moons are different from normal nights, even though such quiet nights are not really normal.[/list:u]
  Now, it's rather difficult to create such false ideas in a game, even though they're all over reality. Players usually manage to get to the reality of the imaginary world faster than their characters ever reasonably could. This subjective system would do so, by making it the case that what people believed about the world is what they would see happening to them. In our crazies example, the fact that the character had this belief that crazy people came out with the full moon would mean that there was a considerably higher probability that he would encounter crazy people on nights with a full moon. Thus the player remembers that as being part of reality because that is what he, through his character, actually experienced. The view is distorted by the mechanic. Arguably, you could say that the world is not subjective at all, but that since we experience it and understand it subjectively, this mechanic models our experience of reality better than one that presents things in a statistically valid pattern.
  
  So there could be reasons to play that way.
  
  --M. J. Young

But it seems to me the scenario implicitly assumes a certain quantity of objectivity - if our characters are emergency workers, then usually that ER room or whatevr will be objectively true, real, and the weirdness cast against it.  But if the whole universe is weird, then so must the ER room...

If nothing is iobjective, if everything is how you will it, then where is conflict, desire, challenge?  After all, the very existance of opponents may itself be a hallucination.  I don't understand why I, as a player, would care about characters in such a world.

Quote from: contracycleIf nothing is iobjective, if everything is how you will it, then where is conflict, desire, challenge?  After all, the very existance of opponents may itself be a hallucination.  I don't understand why I, as a player, would care about characters in such a world.

Probably the same reason why an author cares about a character in a story he is writing. In that instance, it is completely and purely as the author wills it, yet the author can still care about the character, and it may be best if he does because if he doesn't, why should we?

The conflict, desire and challenge could come from the player himself. Like a writer, we could create a character, preferably one we care about, and then bring adversity to that character.

The telling part of your post is:

QuoteI don't understand why I, as a player, would care about characters in such a world.

I can't answer that for you. Maybe you wouldn't. I don't know.

Actually, a bit earlier you had said:

QuoteThe only purpose I see in mechanics is the resolution of conflict,...

I'd like to quote the Lumpley principle:

QuoteResolution systems are methods for group agreement regarding what happens in the imaginary game world.

This includes conflict resolution, as you had stated, but can include much more, such as what is being talked about here.

Quote from: Jack Spencer Jr
Probably the same reason why an author cares about a character in a story he is writing. In that instance, it is completely and purely as the author wills it, yet the author can still care about the character, and it may be best if he does because if he doesn't, why should we?

That is my question.  Most authors do construct worlds external to their characters, and against which the characters strive.  If there is no external world, why would anyone care?

Edit: I note a shift in the above passage; whether the AUTHOR cares is IMO distinct from whether the Audience care.

Quote
The conflict, desire and challenge could come from the player himself. Like a writer, we could create a character, preferably one we care about, and then bring adversity to that character.

Well, the world would only be adverse as long as the character chooses it should be so; the adversity would therefore reinforce the characters alienation from and dominance over any externality.

Quote from: M. J. Young
I don't know that these are mutually exclusive views. In fact, I have no problem with seeing them as all real-world explanations for the variety of faiths in the real world--some evolved, some were discovered, some revealed. But the point of what I'm suggesting is that building religions in one or more of these ways, as an exercise in historical creation, might create more realistic and integrated religions.

Thoughts?

--M. J. Young

I´d posit another model, a essentialy humanist view. This holds that humans are not a Tabula Rasa, but that we have a predisposed nature which colours and shapes our every experience of the world. Therefore we cannot hope to engage the world in a purely neutral mode, but can only fully engage with the world by accepting the characteristics of our in-built phsychological and sensual faculties.

If humans are pre-disposed to percieve the world in the form of animating forces and supernatural manifestations (and nobody who has ever cursed and threatened their car when it failed to start in the morning can deny that we do), then why fight it? To do so is only to deny our nature, and cast ourselves in an artificial mold which frankly we don´t fit.

In a fantasy world, this would be most interestingly explored in the context of different species or races, and their differing psychological characteristics. Sorry to always go back to the same example, but Glorantha does this very well. Uz, Aldryami and Mostali are fundamentaly different from humans in the basic psychology, and this shapes their societies and their interaction with the supernatural in fundamental ways. Surely there are further ways in which this concept could be explored?


Simon Hibbs