Religions

[egamma]

Personally, I think we should force religions to adopt a series of theological stances. Is the faith monotheistic or polytheistic? Is there an afterlife or not? What are the names of the gods? How was the world created?

This should all be game mechanics. Religions should be *forced* to adopt positions that will be saved. A series of questions on key theological questions needing answers of at least 1500 words be asked at the founding.

Since vanilla religions can too easily fit everyone in, we should just force some flavour into them, so that they lose their edge over developed religions (who will then shine for their activity and increased investment).

Wouldn't solve everything, but it'd be a damn good start.

This is something I've wanted for years. I think we could add fields as we go along, and require religion elders to fill in short answer fields within a month of implementation or start losing temples.

Easy fields:
Mono/Polytheistic (options are 1-9, and polytheistic)--radio buttons
afterlife (hell, paradise, reincarnation)--make these 3 checkboxes, so that more than one can be selected
sacrifices (none, grain, animal, human)--3 checkboxes

[Stabbity]

I feel that limits the potential for creative persons founding a religion far too much.

[Vellos]

Easy fields:
Mono/Polytheistic (options are 1-9, and polytheistic)--radio buttons
afterlife (hell, paradise, reincarnation)--make these 3 checkboxes, so that more than one can be selected
sacrifices (none, grain, animal, human)--3 checkboxes

Not easy at all.

Polytheistic/monotheistic is not complete. What about pantheism? What about religions like Buddhism that may not be properly "theistic"?

Afterlife is also more complex. If there is a hell, that still doesn't show who goes there. What about religions (like Qyrvaggism, for example) that teach a more complex afterlife?

It's a neat idea, but it's difficult to figure out how to have it, as Stabbity noted, not limit creativity too much.

In my mind, probably the simplest thing would be a list of, say, 20-30 game actions, and the elders can select a "moral" rating for each one. So looting (and various types of looting), tournaments, festivals, secession, good marks/bad marks, infiltrator actions, trader actions, priest actions, rebellions, spellcasting, dueling, retiring from positions. A scale of maybe "very good" to "very bad" for each thing.

It wouldn't cover tons of theology, but would be a start that can be built from.

The VERY cool thing would be if it would then take all "very bad" things and, when a noble did a "very bad" thing, it had some chance of telling the elders what they did. Your religion doesn't like assassinations? Well, if you get spotted killing someone, it will also be reported to the religion... and even if you don't get spotted by the guards, there is some small percentage (IF the religion regards such a thing as very bad). Maybe reporting of "very good" things would be nice too.

Just kind of brainstorming here.

[Indirik]

SA isn't as much evil through the religion as the people who control it. The "crusades" they are going through with in the north of Dwilight is pretty brutal. First Ravian Empire, Thulsoma, now Averoth? Caerwyn is threatened, etc.. I can't reveal much, but I know SA is one of the worse religions via their actions than their actual religion.

These statements demonstrate that you really don't know a lot about what really happened in these scenarios. The Raivan Empire and Libero Empire were the ones that started that war. They engineered the entire thing using Aquilegia as their scapegoat. They lost because they were horrendously bad at war.

Thulsoma also actively antagonized SA. (IF you look on the wiki you can see somemessages from the player where he practically brags about it.)

Averoth as well set about engineering their war with Astrum. They wanted it. They just didn't want it to turn out the way it has so far.

I'm not saying that SA is the victim in all these. We brought a lot of power to the table to fight them. But then what would you expect? If you poke the 800 pound gorilla, you better be able to take his punch.

And as for Caerwyn, they also are choosing to do some poking, too.

But, what fun is life without a litlle bit of poking back and forth, right?

[Chenier]

I believe I proposed this on the D-list a long time ago.

It's a neat idea, but difficult to implement. Though maybe if we collaboratively came up with 8 or 10 "doctrine" fields with 3-4 options each?

I've also thought about if doctrinal differences should have effects ("Peasants in Keplerstan riot in the streets about whether there is an afterlife or not, Boogeyists say there is, Garbleists say there isn't"), but I ultimately don't think so. It'd be fiendishly hard to code.

I think the only game-effects should be penalties for lack of doctrines (failure to select an option).

Indeed, the idea was thrown a while back. But with it came the suggestion of a forced pantheon (which I think Tom brought forth), which was widely regarded as a bad idea and pretty much caused the whole ship to sink.

I don't think these stance should have any special mechanics, I don't think it needs to be fiendishly hard to code. A few drop-down menus, a few text boxts, penalties if they aren't set. At most, the drop-down menus could influence follower "happyness" over official stances on other religions. But that's hardly necessary, and that may become complicated. Just make filling out the "form" mandatory in the religion-creation process, and give existing religions 1-3 months to write up missing lore.

*If* you want to further complicate things, then you can have it so that you are forced to set character philosophy at character creation, and that he can then later only join matching religions and where it'd be really hard to change philosophy. This might be good, but this sounds like a lot of coding.

I feel that limits the potential for creative persons founding a religion far too much.

Rubbish. Non-theistic/Pantheistic/Monotheistic/Polytheistic. If you can think of something that can't fit in one of these categories, then just say it. Hell, if pantheistic is there, I wouldn't really see a need for non-theistic.

If the options granted in the few drop-down menus available are exhaustive (leaving the more complicated questions with text blocks instead), the only restriction to your creativity would be to its absence.

And nothing would prevent religions from saying "True, we are mostly X, but...". Most religions don't even mention a single word of the afterlife, which is basically the core founding block of every religion.

Afterlife is also more complex. If there is a hell, that still doesn't show who goes there. What about religions (like Qyrvaggism, for example) that teach a more complex afterlife?

It's a neat idea, but it's difficult to figure out how to have it, as Stabbity noted, not limit creativity too much.

Same complete rubbish. What about the details and more complex scenarios...? Uh, what about the wikis? Or even integrated text blocks? How would being forced to sum up your religion in a few key words and paragraphs prevent you from doing everything you do now?

We are talking about forcing people to adopt positions, from drop-down menus when these can be exhaustive and from text boxes when it would be impossible to do so. We are not talking about pre-making a few texts and forcing everyone to chose among those.

[Vellos]

Same complete rubbish. What about the details and more complex scenarios...? Uh, what about the wikis? Or even integrated text blocks? How would being forced to sum up your religion in a few key words and paragraphs prevent you from doing everything you do now?

We are talking about forcing people to adopt positions, from drop-down menus when these can be exhaustive and from text boxes when it would be impossible to do so. We are not talking about pre-making a few texts and forcing everyone to chose among those.

Sometimes I think you don't read anything that anyone writes.

You do realize you just disagreed with me... then proceeded to agree with me, right?

[Shenron]

Sometimes I think you don't read anything that anyone writes.

You do realize you just disagreed with me... then proceeded to agree with me, right?

No I think the meaning of what he said is hard to decipher through text rather than being spoken to. I think "What about the details and more complex scenarios...?" was a simple rephrasing of your question so that he could answer.

The Vellos contention is that complex afterlife's are too difficult to categorize.

The Dominic contention is that complex afterlife's can be cut down to a short description and then simply a reference to a wiki page.

 

[vonGenf]

The problem then is that the religion ends up entirely constrained by the founder; that's not going to help people engage with religion.

One problem I have with religion with a large amount of lore on the wiki is that I feel I may end up having to read all of it, then simply apply it as it already defines everything. Simple religions, on the other hand, allow more IC arguing about the religion itself. It ends up being defined over time, and evolving as the characters change.

[Revan]

I've also thought about if doctrinal differences should have effects ("Peasants in Keplerstan riot in the streets about whether there is an afterlife or not, Boogeyists say there is, Garbleists say there isn't"), but I ultimately don't think so. It'd be fiendishly hard to code.

Great RP though. I had a lot of fun in Latlan after the fall of Vice just making up doctrinal disputes between surviving Hedonists, Hedonist factions and other faiths. It's the sort of thing that adds a lot of flavour. I'd love to see that enshrined in mechanics. In those regions where morale and loyalty are in free fall, why not have it explained by sectarian tensions between rival faiths in the region? Something other than tax, war/looting and distance from capital for peasants to get angry about. The players themselves can choose to flesh out the how and the why of what the peasants were fighting about, if they want to at all.

Personally, I think we should force religions to adopt a series of theological stances. Is the faith monotheistic or polytheistic? Is there an afterlife or not? What are the names of the gods? How was the world created?

This should all be game mechanics. Religions should be *forced* to adopt positions that will be saved. A series of questions on key theological questions needing answers of at least 1500 words be asked at the founding.

That's asking too much I think. What about all new characters being able to choose a religion (or not) when they're created? They'd be able to see the public board same as if they physically visited a temple (which is no different than looking at realms and realm descriptions) with the onus being on faiths coming up with something engaging in that little space rather than 'Welcome to the Eretzism Temple, please come in and look around.'

[Chenier]

The problem then is that the religion ends up entirely constrained by the founder; that's not going to help people engage with religion.

One problem I have with religion with a large amount of lore on the wiki is that I feel I may end up having to read all of it, then simply apply it as it already defines everything. Simple religions, on the other hand, allow more IC arguing about the religion itself. It ends up being defined over time, and evolving as the characters change.

Details can later be changed, details wouldn't be asked at the beginning. But religions just don't switch from saying "there is an afterlife" to saying "the afterlife is a lie, we all reincarnate". If there is such a change in position, then it's a new religion altogether. If the change is merely "you don't go to the underworld alone, but are rather now escorted by a dog", then that's the kind of stuff that would have went on the wiki anyways. It's the bare minimum that would be asked, these building blocks that everyone needs in order to develop upon.

And my experience is that undefined religions remain undefined, forever, and that church elders are not interested in debate or enriching church lore.

That's asking too much I think. What about all new characters being able to choose a religion (or not) when they're created? They'd be able to see the public board same as if they physically visited a temple (which is no different than looking at realms and realm descriptions) with the onus being on faiths coming up with something engaging in that little space rather than 'Welcome to the Eretzism Temple, please come in and look around.'

That's the very strict minimum every religion should have.

The problem with being forced into a religion (though the idea has merits), is that if the religion you picked ended up sucking, and the closest temple is far away, it'll be hard to switch to something more interesting, or joining a newly founded religion. It also raises the question for immigration, and how some characters follow a certain faith that doesn't exist (anymore) on their island.

No I think the meaning of what he said is hard to decipher through text rather than being spoken to. I think "What about the details and more complex scenarios...?" was a simple rephrasing of your question so that he could answer.

The Vellos contention is that complex afterlife's are too difficult to categorize.

The Dominic contention is that complex afterlife's can be cut down to a short description and then simply a reference to a wiki page.

 

I could have used quotation marks, so boo on me, but otherwise what he said.

[egamma]

I like the idea of religions persisting across continents. I know, the official answer is that "you can create it, but the game will treat them as separate." Fine by me! But that would give all of my characters the opportunity to join the same religion, which is quite common in real life.

The larger benefit would be that the same wiki pages would be used by more islands, which means more development. They could easily keep separate lists of temples, or just add a column "Island" to the existing list.

Question is...which religions are developed enough to survive a transplant?

[Vellos]

What about all new characters being able to choose a religion (or not) when they're created? They'd be able to see the public board same as if they physically visited a temple (which is no different than looking at realms and realm descriptions) with the onus being on faiths coming up with something engaging in that little space rather than 'Welcome to the Eretzism Temple, please come in and look around.'

I have always wanted this.

However, it shouldn't be a complete list. It should be a list of religions in that realm. That way, you don't have the problem Chenier mentioned: what if there is no temple nearby. Moreover, this would give religions an incentive to span realms: having one temple in a foreign realm gets you a shot at its new nobles.

Alternatively, new characters could pick island, then religion, then be supplied a list of realms that have temples of that religion. But now I'm just dreaming.

But, the first idea, of new characters having a religion-selection menu during character creation, seems like a worthwhile thing, and not that hard to code.

Immigrating characters could be given an "opt-out." New characters cannot have an "opt-out." Which makes sense: a new 18 year old character is not a prophet of a new religion. Jesus was in his 30's, folks. He had built up his honor and prestige for quite some time through training his oratory and carpentry skills at the academy.

Err....

[songqu88@gmail.com]

I wonder what class I have to be to train my carpentry skill? Thaumaturgy also sounds good.

It might not be so simple to implement that though. Religions can sometimes disappear in short time. What happens when a dying faith suddenly gets kept alive because a bunch of new players/characters, for whatever reason, join it. It just sounds a bit easy to exploit for some unintended consequences is all I'm saying.

[Vellos]

How would that help a religion?

If new players join, it is presumably because the religion's ad attracted them. If they choose to become priests and invest in temples, then the religion is being revitalized: and that is a good thing. That's what we want. If they join the religion and do nothing, it will continue to die anyways. Nobles being in a religion do not keep it going. Nobles giving money and converting peasants keep it going.

[Chenier]

I have always wanted this.

However, it shouldn't be a complete list. It should be a list of religions in that realm. That way, you don't have the problem Chenier mentioned: what if there is no temple nearby. Moreover, this would give religions an incentive to span realms: having one temple in a foreign realm gets you a shot at its new nobles.

Alternatively, new characters could pick island, then religion, then be supplied a list of realms that have temples of that religion. But now I'm just dreaming.

Most realms only have 1 religion. And crossing borders into new realms is no easy task, even for the active.

The second would be interesting.

But I stand by my opinion that religions ought to have to declare a few of the fundamentals. A religion that doesn't even know if there's an afterlife does not deserve temples and game-mechanic support, it's not going to attract thousands of followers. Want a religion that doesn't know what the hell it believes in? RP it, you don't need a game-generated one.

Want thousands of followers, and the power to claim regions and spread unrest among your followers? Then establish some core principles by which you will reach their hearts. "Vanilla religions" are nothing more than pseudo-religions, fabrics of a political ambition.

We had a massive crack-down to enforce oaths, marshals, and other similar things. If we really care about religions, if we really want them to be fun and immersive, then we need to take out strong measures for it.

Force religions to make sense, and force players to make sense in their choice of religion.