Taxing Religions/Secret Societies

[Chenier]

The problem is that state-religions (in the sense of religions that worship the state, not the only religion of a state) are the financially most viable ones. And they make very poor RP, leading to a bad-quality religion game. The way I see it is that /interesting/ religions, rich and complex, depend on slowly getting adepts because of its quality, among the nobility, not only because the leader is the Duke, or such. Taxing religions will kill a good amount of these religions, leaving the state-religions intact.

Precisely what I have been saying, in a less explicit way.

You want religions to seek out support from the wealthy? Sure. You want religious to need support from the wealthy? Don't expect these religions to be anything more than political tools of no RP value and interest.

[Vellos]

Precisely what I have been saying, in a less explicit way.

You want religions to seek out support from the wealthy? Sure. You want religious to need support from the wealthy? Don't expect these religions to be anything more than political tools of no RP value and interest.

Very much agree.

The more dependent religions are on political support, the more emphasis there will be on national religions and the less marginal reward for people whose interests lie elsewhere.

[Chenier]

Very much agree.

The more dependent religions are on political support, the more emphasis there will be on national religions and the less marginal reward for people whose interests lie elsewhere.

I can't even begin to imagine how the Cult would have turned out if it had been taxed... Probably never would have gotten the influence it did, and therefore would never have caused all the conflicts it did.

[fodder]

Take Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.

the current lot doing rto isn't Qyrvaggism? and strangely enough, the Qyrvaggism priest floating around preaching in riombara is from fronen (who got chucked out of rio quite a while back during the invasion)

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i think the problem with religion is.. quite simply immersion problem. how many players actually dig a religion enough to be able to make the character believe in enough? especially if a player is atheist or agnostic? when i played elder in "the order", that is the odd ball religion in AT with basically no name, i can't say i understand the religion. so what's left? politics.

i think religion being a rp thing can only go so far..

[Valast]

Not to undercut this very profound, interesting and VERY geeked out discussion...

but as I see it the aspect that is missing in the church, tax, region lord dynamic is man power/region benefit.

I am no code wizard but what if the region lord were able to set the tax... however the church FOLLOWERS aka the nobility could have an option much like civil work only under the banner of the church.  The more nobles who use hours towards that, the lower the church is taxed.  This would then help to keep the people happy and allow the region lord to run a higher over all tax rate. 

[JPierreD]

i think the problem with religion is.. quite simply immersion problem. how many players actually dig a religion enough to be able to make the character believe in enough? especially if a player is atheist or agnostic? when i played elder in "the order", that is the odd ball religion in AT with basically no name, i can't say i understand the religion. so what's left? politics.

i think religion being a rp thing can only go so far..

I am on the idea that a religion needs to be at some level a handicap, not only an advantage (politic, economic, or whatever). There should be some stuff that the character believes in that may not be exactly good or relevant for his interests, but it is the /divine truth/, a religious value. It's part of what makes religions interesting, RP-wise, to me. If religions are otherwise just the in-game mechanics and absolutely nothing else, then the religion game is quite poor indeed.

It is hard to work on such kind of religion if the economic costs accumulate, and they stand between the players' tolerable efforts and the religion. To me more "handicapping" religions mean more RP conflicting values, and thus more conflicts for IC reasons. Those kind of religions are rarely in excess.

[Stue (DC)]

We played the political game with the Order - it ends up being like a unloved Realm.   Other Realms dont like it when you influence their politics, they get angry, and burn your temples to the ground, destroy your buildings, and generally attack your priests, while the Realm hosting you either can sit idly by and watch, OR try to defend you and get beat up by everyone because the rest of the Realms like to join in on the beat down to keep out TMP.

Priests and Temples don't have enough influence to play political games UNLESS they are already appointed to regions and your host Realm is incredibly strong.   Generally playing political games with a faith is the best way to ensure you DON'T have a faith.   It's a lot easier to piss off a Realm than convince even a few of their Lords that you might be useful.

It's far easier to play nice with a few Realms, be apolitical, and build up your inter-realm player base that way.    Then those realms fight and you end up with your own faith fighting each other for land.   

Outside of SA Ive yet to see a faith that actually holds much power for very long - generally because pushing political goals gets you owned as a Faith very very quickly.    Everytime a region changes hands theres a good chance you'll lose the temples there - and if you'll be playing with fire taking it back if your own Realm isn't 100% your faith.

this is very close to my experience with religion.

crippling religions by making them financially and generally dependant on region lords all around, deprives religions of any real chance to play significant role, be it political or apolitical.

on those hypotetical situation when one overly strong realm would commit to support religion leads to one and one only way of playing it, and that is through theocracy.

no mundane powers would ever have interest to spend so much money and efforts to give power... to someone else, that simply counters logic. if religions cannot be powerful on their own, they will not be powerful at all, and will be just negligible decorstibe attachements now and than.

of, course, hypothetically, some religion would spread over continent by being so helpful to each and every region lord who host them, by helping regions by all means, transferring messages etc. but who would bother? who would make effort knowing that he will never be able to become indenpendant power. that is hopeless in my opinion.

[Stue (DC)]

Yeah me too. Can anyone point to a non-hypothetical situation where this has been a problem. Banking seems like a fun idea. Why not let people hoard cash?

agreed.

in terms of gameplay i cannot see why saving large amounts of money is detrimental, some limitiation exist anyhow, so it is not possible to save too much without effort and investments.

for fun, if there are some slow and boring times, many will find their goal in saving money for troubles. that can enable some spectacular events once troubles start, which are not possible without lot of money - very large initial army recruitment, building of strong walls or militia, all that giving some sense to many weeks of money collection.

saving funds for hard times gives more timeline depth to the game, is it not one of unique game features...

if obstacles are to be implemented, than player-run obstacles would be much funnier - possibility for infils/any nobles to steal temple money, possibility to detect secret guildhouses etc.

i believe it can be detected by mere observing that wide-spread game mechanics hardships directly slow down all events, be it estate penalties, be it heave maintenance/taxing costs.

[Galvez]

It is hard to work on such kind of religion if the economic costs accumulate, and they stand between the players' tolerable efforts and the religion. To me more "handicapping" religions mean more RP conflicting values, and thus more conflicts for IC reasons. Those kind of religions are rarely in excess.

The Church of Sartan on the Far East. At least when I was high priest there, we had a strong code of honour which certainly handicaps you.

[Chenier]

The Church of Sartan on the Far East. At least when I was high priest there, we had a strong code of honour which certainly handicaps you.

Point being? Nobody said there never was any religions with any handicaps. Try human sacrifices, for a handicap! And it lasted quite some time, too, and became quite powerful.

[vonGenf]

Nobody said there never was any religions with any handicaps.

JPierreD kinda did. I'll give you that the BC went farther than most.

[Chenier]

JPierreD kinda did. I'll give you that the BC went farther than most.

Not in the paragraph he quoted, at least. He just said that they were rare, and will become even more difficult if financial burdens increase.

[JPierreD]

Exactly. Where did I ever said there were none?

[vonGenf]

Chill out, no one's out to get you.  The Church of Sartan is apparently an example of an handicapping religion. There are others - apparently not as many as you'd like.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with anyone else here.