Haktoo?

[fodder]

best thing they can get out of this is a roman imperial cult lookalike (or the best thing they can use to get out of it)

.... but the emperor is just one god out of a multitude of others

[JPierreD]

Which basically means that their pantheon is upside down compared to the one we are used to. Is this so bad?

So if I RP I am a commoner and that nobles are inferior my social hierarchy will be upside down compared to the one of the setting. Is this so bad? Yes, it is.
We are players, we know that there are no gods in BM and that being cursed by a priest or religion will mean nothing to our characters. But them, our characters, do not know that. They are not supposed to, they are not atheists. The religions here modeled rely on character's gullibility and superstition. That is medieval.

Is it legal in Aurvandil to suggest the King may be mortal? Maybe not.

So? God-kings is a completely valid RP, even if not properly medieval (I consider the religion game to more closely resemble Classical times).

How many gods is is necessary to be considered medieval? I thought one was enough.

No gods are necessary. Some kind of superior deity is.

If you are superior to other gods, should you worship them? Is it not normal to restrict worship to the superior god in your own realm?

You can only worship your single superior deity, no need to worship or even recognize others.

Aurvandil at the moment is clearly fearful and defiant of religion, which means they acknowledge religion and gods generally. They don't suggest to ignore it, which would be non-SMA, they suggest to oppose the existing churches.

That is the problem, they are not fearful and defiant of the known religions, but of "religion". If you consider that to mean acknowledging religion and gods then the Soviet Union and many communist dictatorships were not atheists.

Let me put it this way: in medieval times a world or realm without religion was not conceivable. Monarchs could force the Churches to recognize them as deities, and using other tactics to counter-balance their influence, but to oppose religion would be madness. That is Enlightenment, not medieval.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Why not just have SMA without it having to be a replica of medieval times? I thought SMA was acting like a noble, living in a low fantasy world but we would be allowed to fill that world with our ideas and create our own cultures, what is happening here constantly is there is people who desire to do interesting things and then there are people here who want to keep the order essentially the same forever with minor variations of a theme. There seems to be two factions in BM.

Why would using an idea from the french revolution be bad? It has historical precedent... Its not like the suggestion was "hey guyz lets start a religion where we worship butter" I figure as long as the idea is serious then we should be allowed to pursue those story arcs, lets be allowed to take an SMA environment and build upon it, build our new cultures, histories instead of just repeating a theme forever into stagnation.

BM is not medieval Europe. We can you aspects of medieval Europe but we should be bound in all of our thoughts by it and limit the potential for story and drama. It seems that the whole SMA thing is merely tossed around as a way to police people and ideas you personally don't like instead of rationally looking at it and making suggestion and tweaking or building upon it until it is suitable.

[Indirik]

We can you aspects of medieval Europe but we should be bound in all of our thoughts by it and limit the potential for story and drama.

Do you want to try and rephrase that? I have a feeling it says the exact opposite of what you want to say.  ???

[Glaumring the Fox]

Ok, We can speak and dress and have technology of medieval times, but other things like culture and social ideas we can add our own. Kind of like how steam-punk is the 19th century with sci-fi elements, or DUNE is Sci-fi with medieval elements, or Krull was medieval with sci-fi elements, basically everyone in the KRULL movie was living an SMA lifestyle but there were things going on around themselves that were not very SMA.

Our characters should be as SMA as possible, but the world we live in should be one of evolving cultures and ideas, with SMA for the basis of how the characters interact in that world and deal with things.

SMA should not be a reason to shoot down interesting ideas and concepts.

[Perth]

Why would using an idea from the french revolution be bad?

Because it's Serious Medieval Atmosphere.

If stuff from the French Revolution is okay just because you're being "serious" about it, then anything would be okay as long as we're serious about it. Communist Party? As long as you're serious! Atheists? As long as you're serious!

It's the whole reason we play a game based around Feudalism. It's supposed to be Medieval.

I mean, I understand what you're saying and all, and have nothing against the particular concept. I just think that as long as we're labeling it Serious Medieval Atmosphere we should probably strive to actually make it a Serious Medieval Atmosphere. If that isn't what we want, then lets stop calling it that. We can just call it Serious Atmosphere.

[Ehndras]

The game's creator wants it to be medieval and only medieval so we have to respect that and follow the rules.

Folks didn't just turn around and say HEY, lets make BM medieval for the lulz!

[Glaumring the Fox]

Its barely medieval though...

[Ehndras]

Of course it is. The only non-medieval thing are actual demon attacks. Its a FANTASY game after all, so you can't expect it to be 100% historical and realistic, otherwise 95% of the games' religions would be null and void, especially ones such as SA.

[Perth]

Its barely medieval though...

Hence the great deal of ire and sorrow you see in many of us...  :-[

[Indirik]

And is probably due to the fact that 99.9% of us are NOT medieval scholars. We do the best we can.

[Glaumring the Fox]

So you guys basically admitted that it is best to try for an SMA than an actual SMA as long as your willing to take a bit of tweaking to an idea... Awesome point proven, now how about that ' cult of the supreme being' idea now?

[JPierreD]

So you guys basically admitted that it is best to try for an SMA than an actual SMA as long as your willing to take a bit of tweaking to an idea... Awesome point proven, now how about that ' cult of the supreme being' idea now?

What they mean is that SMA does not equal exactly what happened in the Middle Ages, but what non-experts know about Medieval times. And that is not a free pass for anything.

SMA is about mentality, over anything else. You are a medieval noble. Foreign religions contain knowledge unknown to you. They are at the very least scary. There are beings and forces you do not comprehend, and anyone could have a connection with them.

Religions exist because the world is not seen scientifically, but explained via religious beliefs. They may be pagan in the sense of not belonging to an organized Church, or they may be within a large group such as Astroism, but they cannot be Enlightenment philosophy.

The thought that religion is only for the ignorant masses is definitely not medieval.

[Perth]

So you guys basically admitted that it is best to try for an SMA than an actual SMA as long as your willing to take a bit of tweaking to an idea... Awesome point proven, now how about that ' cult of the supreme being' idea now?

And you said anything should go as long people aren't being goofy or silly with it.

[Poliorketes]

In Medieval times, the Kings were kings by the divine will! They were Kings because It was God will!...  8)

To say no to religion, is to say you don't have any rights to be king! You are only an oversized armed peasant! ... mmm... maybe in the Mendicant matter this is the most accurate description!  ;D