Ever have interest in mixing games and religion? Like playing a character with faith? Or maybe having Spiritual Battle in realms beyond the physical? Or just want to chat about ideas you may work on for that game? Here's the space for it.

Don't know if this is where it belongs, but what about religious affiliations of big names in gaming?  I don't know the denominations of Gygax or Steve Jackson or the like, but I remember a Dragon magazine article many, many years ago when it talked about all the various religions represented within their offices.

The only one I know (for obvious reasons) is Tracy Hickman.  He is LDS, and he is a very nice guy (most of them are).  I met him on several occasions even though I'm not a big fan of Dragonlance.  But I loved the modules he created for the early AD&D game.  He lives about an hour and a half away from my house in the US.

Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss are my favorite author-couplet thingy. I would love to meet the guy, they are both riveting writers

Well, relating to spirituality in gaming and stuff, isn't there already in some games? We have "Black and White," as well as various other games containing some sort of spirituality (unfortunatly you don't get to play the diety :P)... but my question is, would it be a sin for Christians or Catholics to play those? Because technically it's creating a false god or something ^^;

Is it a sin? For some, absolutely. For all becomes the question that is very debated. Those in favor says yes, it's ok. For those not in favor, do not play, and that's not always because they don't enjoy those games.
I would say that to automatically say it's ok, and you enjoy playing, that is a bit of a bias to say it's ok.
My recommendation is for those who feels it's ok, please take the game to your pastor. They are more learned of the bible, and can step back from the biases that may be present in a roleplayer.

Although I don't have personal experience with this, it seems that the opposite is true.  Many of the influential anti-D&D groups of the 80's (and the smaller ones of the 90's) looked at the holy scriptures and interpreted them in a strict way that a man of the cloth would (presumably) be more likely to do.  I guess itr depends on the individual priest/pastor/rabbi/imam; it's easy to see how many of them could disapprove of a game involving characters summoning creatures, worshipping strange gods, etc. regardless of the beliefs of the players

Your pastor should be able to determine without condemning. And he should be able to tell you what or if there are problems using scripture. It does say to use scripture to correct or reproof.

Worshipping a false god requires worship.  I suppose they say that worship is where your heart is.  Playing games with fantasy gods and pantheons is not considered by the mainstream to be doing this anymore than the Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo of Cinderella is a Satanic magic ritual.  (FYI, this was the analogy given by Tracy Hickman at a convention in the 80's to concerned LDS followers.)

...But putting your entire efforts into games and neglecting the more important things in life probably could be.

I think gaming is a great tool for teaching as well as entertaining. It allows the players to act out events that they might not normally encounter until later in life. It allows them to think out the why's and the how's of life in advance, giving them time to form stronger perceptions of things and also strengthen their beliefs.
To parents whose children are very impressionable, I see their concern. That is why it is important for parents to communicate with their children. To help them understand what things are done in the concept of play, and which ones are beliefs to live by.
We cannot all control which people become DMs or GMs. We cannot control their bias when they create thier stories. With people whose faith are not at all strong, they may be overwhelmed by the ideas brought on by a GM with a strong personality.
Also, there is a good probability for people who do not like their reality to live within the games. It takes a certain amount of emotional stability to play RPG without getting caught up in the game. In the game, they have power, a certain amount of control. The ability to plan out their moves. If only they could apply this outside of the game.

I think that last line just constitutes an obsession Heath, never good whatever it is.

But I'd have to agree in general, if it's a game what does it matter. There's no comparison between playing the servant of an evil god for fun (and sometimes it can be extremely good fun. I had this Drow character that...) and becoming a cultist of some sort in real life.

I really don't think that here is any problem of spillover of someone's beliefs into a game affecting someones worldview (except possibly pointing out that there is more than one way to look at things, and is that ever wrong?)
Very few people lose their distinction between reality and fantasy, and those that do are probablygoing to do it no matter what they are exposed to.

Role-playing games have actually been used in psychotherapy, giving people new ways to cope with the world. Something along the lines of 'think what would your character do in this situation, and do it for yourself'. Particularly good for extreme introverts and other inward turning pshychoses. Apparently it works rather well.

Staistically though role-players are more balanced andbetter adjusted people than the norm. The claims of cult recruitment and suicide inducements (among other things) brought out by individuals and (typically) religious groups have so far turned out to be (I'm going to be rude here) Fart Gas!!

POWER TO THE ROLEPLAYERS! Errr... there's my shameless plug for myself and my friends. But I do have a serious question.

Can roleplaying affect your beliefs, and if so, should it? Should you be allowed to theorize and change your opinions about god, or is that, in fact, a sin?

EH?

I would seriously doubt that Roleplaying would have any effect on someone's beliefs. Unless those beliefs were of the sterotypical roleplayer (from mostly outdated detractor groups views) with no outside existence clutching their dogeared rulesbooks in hand while officiating over occult rituals and contemplating mass murder and suicide.

Playing should change your beliefs in how 'misleading' the game actually is if this were the case.

If you study the claims made by most roleplaying detractors, you see that most of them have only a vague idea what they are actually complaining about.
Though I must say that most people have now actually noticed that roleplaying is not 'wrong' or 'evil' and there is relatively little agitation against it these days.

One of the more common complaints seemed to be against the concept of allowing 'impressionable minds' see that the world is not united in it's belief systems. But these same people tend to keep kids in a shoebox and try to prevent them from seeing that there is something more to the world than the carefully regulated and censored world they have been misleadingly led to believe is a normal state of existence.


Why shouldn't you be able to fully consider other options? If your views are correct then there is no way asking questions and examining your beliefs critically can do any harm because the answers will always be there.
If you just accept anything without personal assessment and examination, then you have been brainwashed no matter what the topic.
If something doesn't fit then you SHOULD find out why, and the correct answer/possibility should present itself.


I think in any way you look at it, magicofrealm,  you can only sin if you subscribe to a belief structure that promotes the concept of sin.
And even then how could doubt, curiosity and investigation be considered a sin?

That's not logical, and would only serve to promote blind adherence to instruction, not personal belief.

Sin isn't a sin because joe smoe says it's a sin. A sinner is a definition. It's not a concept whether you think or agree that you are. It's certainly would not be a thing where you proudly proclaim, "I'm a sinner! Yea!" Example, If I go to Saudi Arabia with my wife, and her wearing shorts is akin to her being a tramp by their rules. It doesn't matter what I believe, as she's being judged by their rules. Their rules exist, regardless of me not believeing them. And even if I left, those rules still exist. Coming back to Canada, shorts are quite appropriate here for her, but by the standards of Saudi Arabia, it is not appropriate. We can ignore their standards, but they are a standard used. A sin is a standard from the Word of God.

Great Hairy One, that's what I meant.

I know personally that my "ideas" and "beliefs" about life have changed just through roleplaying. For me, and I am a "serious" roleplayer who isn't some sort of cultis ;), it gives me a chance to theorize and be someone else who believes something else... and has helped me evolve my interpretations of my bible that I have now. When you 'become' someone else, you think diffrently, and when you think diffrently, ocasionally you get a really good idea about something that isn't related to the game at all.

Kudos to that. Once I started gaming, I had to see in the perspective of the characters I played. When I started, I was given roles to play, I didn't make them myself.
Most times I was given characters so unlike myself. And to become a good roleplayer, I had to understand the why's of the character.
RPG taught me to think, to question, to form my own conclusions, as well as respect that of others.
But one cannot say that gaming was the only influence. I had books, and I had friends, as well as family. It just taught me how to handle differences in a constructive manner.
***
I'm sad to note, though, that I have seen players caught up in their own characters, such that their personality in and out of character merged. We try to discourage that. So, as a group we do other things, like go bowling, or watch a movie together, or mingle with other people (ie conventions).
In relation to religion, though, I have not seen anyone change their religion based on a game. I think it takes more than gaming to change somebody's mind about religion. They need to have a coach, someone to explain the intricacies of religion before they make the leap of faith.

For your first statement, "obsession" is at the root of worshipping a false god, so I think we're both right.

For the second statement, it is interesting that the very creators and early developers of the game were (the vast majority of them) extremely religious.  It is unfortunate that a few extremist wackos create a stigma against other religious adherents.

Personally, I'd have to agree with Altair. It takes something more than a game to make a person change religion. However, I do think that playing a game could stir you to look more deeply into a religion and later convert after thorough understanding. Just a personal opinion though.

We should write a book:  "All I ever needed to know I learned in D&D."  ;)

Well, there's already the "All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" and "All I Need to Know I Learned From my Cat" and "All I Need to Know I Learned From Dinosaurs"... why not add it to the list?

Of course, I've never played D&D... I've only ever Text roleplayed. But what I meant was more along the lines of INTERPRETATION of your own religion.

You only point out that sin is 'someone else's opinion' and not an absolute.
Therefore as far as you as an individual are concerned, you cannot sin unless you think you have.

Though that doesn't stop you from offending others, but that's their problem.
That being said, you should always be aware of the POV of others.

Yeah, but roleplaying is just one way of being opened up to other/new concepts.

I think everyone should be required to do a course in anthropology so that you can get a feel for cultural relativity and different worldviews.
It's got to be harder to maintain that your way of thinking is the only 'right way' (religious, national or cultural) when you look at just how illogical it would seem from a different cultural viewpoint.
And that they are all equally valid.

GHO-I think you misunderstand.  A sin is absolute regardless of someone's POV, although it will be judged more or less harshly depending on a person's responsible level of knowledge.  (Thus, Moses would be judged more harshly for adultery than someone living in a tribe in Africa.)  It is stated that no unclean thing can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Whether a person is cleansed of sin or not is not something that person determines according to his own judgments, but whether that person has truly repented of his ways and can successfully access the Mercy of Christ to be cleansed is dependent on the person making knowledgeable decisions.  (For example, we are much more forgiving of an 8 year old than we are of a 17 year old.)  Thus, it is about forgiveness of sins, not whether something is a sin.  The latter is an absolute.

It would certainly be controversial. And controversial makes sales. ^_^

I wonder if it would get to the bestsellers' list.



Yeah, I get you there. If a certain act is a sin in religion A, and not a sin in religion B, those in religion A would call the person who did the act a sinner but not to those in religion B.

Example, in a friend of mine's religion, they are forbidden to celebrate their birthdays because it is a vanity, and therefore a sin. So, should the other Christians who celebrate their birthdays be called sinners and repent and celebrate their birthdays no more? In the POV of my friend, this would be true, since she believes that their faith is the true faith.

In the POV of other Christians, this act would not mean sinning, but rather a joyful celebration of the Lord's giving them another year of blessing.

So who's who and what's what? Who sinned and who did not? Can you call your religion more valid than the other? Is it fair? Is it just? ^_^ Is it black and white? Who is the judge... or rather, who is worthy to be judge?

Only from the POV of someone who believes in sin as an absolute.

Me, I can't sin. You may think so, but I don't subscribe to any of that supernatural stuff.

There are things I won't do and don't like other people doing, but I'm aware that that is only my POV and shaped by my background.

The concept of right and wrong is a cultural artifice.

^_^ I'd also like to believe I haven't sinned, ever... but from my POV, I have. And from experience, I know everyone else has too (Christians, anyway).

Therefore, I cannot bring myself to point a finger at sinners, because I know the first one I should point to is me. Nor can I preach what should or should not be done, because I am no holier than anyone else. It would be vain for me to say God has chosen me to preach about sinners when I know I had been remiss. I would rather preach about love and forgiveness, something God has given all of us an abundance of.

I suppose to others, I am vain to think that no one but God himself (in person) can tell me I am a sinner, which should be sometime after I die. But then again, to each his own. ^_^

Fair nuff!

But all that is because you subscribe to that POV in the first place doesn't it.

Yes, it does. ^_^

I know I have an unusual POV, but I wonder just how wierd it is.

Well, it's not wierd to me.
Maybe because I have seen and heard about a lot of religions and/or beliefs. It doesn't surprise me at all to know what you believe in.
Well... maybe I would find it wierd if someone believed he had to eat all the spiders he sees in order to get to some heaven he believes in... Or stand on his head for the rest of his life...

I meant more non standard or uncommon than wierd.


Spider eating... I don't feel too wierd now if that's one of the first things that pops into your mind 8@

If any group says something is a sin, and it isn't a sin by the standards of God, just exactly where do they get their information from?
A sin is a sin only because God says it's a sin.

Although I think you have to be faithful to your religion.  It may not be sin per se, but it might be a form of dishonesty to oneself and one's beliefs, so long as the requirement itself is not sinful.

^_^ Which god?
Well, their pastor says that's what God says in the Bible... I didn't stick around long enough to hear the explanation. Only it was something about man's vanity.
So it counts as a sin, ne?
Their followers believe that their pastor had been given authority by God to interpret the Bible, as with all other religions and their pastors or priests or councils.

If you are talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, they don't celebrate birthdays because they see the celebration of 'you' as elevating yourself above the Lord, or something like that.  My mother-in-law is a JW - holidays are a blast at my house.  :P

Oh, my friend was a JW then... Hmmm... I must not have been a very good friend if I couldn't even remember what her religion was...
Great to know you still celebrate some things ^_^.
So, is it a sin as they said it was?

It would be easier to list what is not a sin in the Society's eyes then what is a sin.  In a nutshell, you do what the Society says (even if they change their mind - repeatedly) or you will be disfellowshiped - meaning you are cut off from all of your friends and family still in the church.  They are forbidden from seeing you, speaking to you, or even acknowldgeing your existance.

These people were a big hump my wife and I had to get over in our marriage, so chances are I will never look favorably upon them.

That's sad. :(  It's hard to be separated from family. More so when they don't even acknowledge you.

Sin is what God says it is, not what man says it is.
Sin is defined by God.

But as stated earlier, which god?

It's a matter of which set of rules you consider valid, appropriate and/or that you know about.

You have your list of sins, and other groups have theirs... it's all a matter of what code you adhere to through choice or upbringing.

Actually, I believe a sin is a sin, regardless what their religion states. And apparatnly, since Heath considers himself a chrstian, and I said there is a contradiction between our beliefs, I would say we would call the other wrong in beliefs.


But GHO, in a simple comparison, I'm in Canada. Even if I don't believe in Canadian laws, and I break one, I'm still held to those laws, regardless of my belief. According to God, breaking one of his laws makes the law breaker a sinner. Breaking a law in a country is a criminal. The comparison is, belief or lack of belief does not change the law. Gods laws says a variety of things. If you disobey his law, you are a sinner. If you disobey a law in Canada, you are going to be punished. Belief does not change a law.

Just for clarification purposes, I don't know about other religions, but our religion has things broken down as follows: commandments, counsel, and policy.

Commandments are the absolutes:  "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not"

Counsel are statements of principles.  They recognize god-like principles but do not say what exactly is sin or not sin.  A statement made in our church is: "We teach correct principles and let people govern themselves."

Policy is the type of thing as organizational structure, etc.  It is just the way things are done to make things work, not really related to any right or wrong per se.


Example:  LDS Counsel:  The body is a tabernacle where the soul dwells and should be treated with respect and taken care of.  Commandments:  This means particularly that certain activities are not done, such as consumption of alchohol or use of tobacco.  People have interpreted the counsel to mean that they should exercise and maintain strong physical bodies.  How far to take this principle is up to the individual and generally determined through personal prayer.

However, a Canadian law is only valid in Canada (and whatever they have extradition treaties with), and a totally contradictory law can be enforced elsewhere.

Thus the law is only valid in some areas, and from a certain POV. Laws are relative not absolute. A lawbreaker is only a crimminal within a certain juristiction

If you disobey a law in Canada, you are going to be punished if the Canadian authorities can get you. Go somewhere that that law is not enforced/believed in and you go free, or can even be rewarded.

Eg a terrorist bomber from Arabia would be a crimminal in Canada but may be a public hero in his own country. (A simplistic hypothetical situation this, but you get the idea no doubt.)

Thank you, you have provided another way of making my point. 8)



Heath, that's only a matter of how your particular social group looks at things, and has no bearing on the moral stance of others (unless they are concerned with how you percieve them.)

Wrong.  The principles are eternal and unchangeable.  Commandments set guidelines that even the lowest common denominator can follow as a minimum rule.  The goal is for each individual to receive personal revelation to make improvements and increase his standard with a level he can personally achieve on a path toward the Kingdom of God.  Although we each forge our paths separately, we will be judged according to our own capabilities with relationship to eternal principles, not according to the vagaries of our imagination and a path of moral degredation.

Well, if God can create the world, create life from nothing, and is all powerful, I think God, is authority over the entire universe, never mind a country border.

But that's only a consideration for those that subscribe to your religion.
You may think it is universal, and the others of your religion, but no-one else does.

I think the point rogue's making is that it doesn't matter what people think.  The truth is the truth.  More or less people believing in something won't make something more or less true.

And where does thinking a countries rules cannot rule over you get ya?
About the same, thinking doesn't change much.

Just for the sake of preserving the analogy, if I break Canada's law, I cannot go to Canada without being punished.  Likewise, if you break God's law, you cannot go to the Kingdom of God without forgiveness of that sin.

GM: edited due to insult
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:06, Wed 14 July 2004.

The Kingdom of God has nothing to do with established religion.  It is a set absolute standard.  "No unclean thing may enter into the Kingdom of God."  There is established religion to help meet those standards and partake of the necessary ordinances by one with the proper authority.  It really has nothing to do with POV.

What has to do with POV is the access people have to forgiveness.

Sorry, don't understand that last post Rogue.

Yes Heath, you are not acceptable within that religion but it doesn't have any effect elsewhere.

The point being that it is all relevant to your POV.
Christians think that certain actions have certain supernatural consequences, you believe it is true and affects everybody, the rest of us don't.
I can't help it if Christianity thinks it speaks for everybody.

I don't eat people, I have a morally based abhorrence for the concept, but there are cultures where it is perfectly acceptable, even required.
In my situation it is expected and acceptable not to eat people, in theirs it it is expected and acceptable  to eat people.

Neither is wrong, neither is right except by POV, morality as an absolute is perfectly neutral.



I still don't think that was insulting, and wasn't meant to be, but hopefully this is acceptable.



Heath it is just that that is the christian POV and has no influence over any other viewpoint. The rest of the world disagree's and you have nothing to make your POV more valid/accurate/superior to any other.

I was saying not believing in a law doesn't change it exists. And God's law is not held back by borders.



I understand you do not want to insult.

I was using your analogy, that in different areas, the law doesn't exist.

The same is true of different moral codes, the 'wrongness' of something does not exist in a different moral framework.

The influence of any god halts with the belief of any followers.

'gods law' as you put it only extends as far as christianity.

How do you step outside the universe? God's law exists everywhere.

GM:Deleted due to insult
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:13, Wed 14 July 2004.

Rogue, put aside your faith for a second and take a look at what you are saying.  Put yourself in the place of a non-Christian whom you might be talking to.  You are talking to him about your god's laws extending throughout the universe and he is saying the exact same thing to you about his god.  Each have different commandmants and rules to live by (though some are likely the same), but neither of you can convince the other you are correct beyond any shadow of a doubt.

The biggest problem I have with most religions, and Christianity in particular, is that adherants often have the attitude that, "I am right because God tells me I am right - therefore, you must be wrong."  Has is not ever occured to anyone that all paths might lead to the same place, just with differing scenery along the way?

God is a very loving and patient God. His laws exist, regardless of my or anyone's beliefs. God is God. Science has to fall back on many things, including limitations of knowledge. God goes beyond man. The bible has prophecy that man cannot know, but none the less are written down by man. The accuracy of these prophecies are very uncanny. If it was once, or twice, even I would say "lucky guess", but with so many, it's beyond that, it's knowledge of something not knowable by man.

Has it occured to me that different paths lead to God. Sure, somewhat, but then with so many religions that beliefs depend on them being the right way, I realized that there can't be multiple paths. Because that would mean God is behind trying to turn people against themselves. Think of it this way, many wiccans accuse catholics for the witch trials, but if that is a command of God, then God is trying to kill his followers. Does that sound like God wants followers?

If there is a right way, obviously, there must be a wrong way.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:59, Wed 14 July 2004.

Which is why I am not a Christian.  I can't tell someone definitively that they are wrong when I cannot be certain beyond reasonable doubt that I am right.

I am certain beyond reasonable doubt.

Actually, you don't have to tell anyone they are wrong to be christian. Is that the only thing holding you back? My wife almost never talks about other religions. She's quite comfortable just reading the bible, going to church, etc...

So if that's the only thing, don't let that hold you back. Technically the term I could be called is an apologetic. (using the bible to refute misinformation). And to be a christian, you don't have to say "you're wrong to anyone"

I have got a few more reasons then just that for walking away from Christianity.  I did my own searching and it led me away from the Christianity and the bible altogether.  For a long time before I found Buddhism, I hoovered somewhere between athiesm and agnosticism .  I found the path on which I belonged, where things could be explained or at least reasoned without having to fall back onto divine providince.  I took the Buddha's advice and found my own light, and if that is viewed as 'wrong' by anyone - well, that would be their problem.  :)

That's one reason why I'm a non-denominational Christian. It is because of the fact that most Christians, including Catholics, extend the laws to judge people beyond the Christian religion. They may not say, "You're wrong!" but the implication is still there. I believe that this stance causes friction between religions and religious denominations. It defeats the purpose of the law: to promote harmony between all peoples; That all things be done because we love God and we share this love with our neighbors.

I love my God and  believe him to be a loving and merciful Father. I cannot believe it of my Father God to condemn a man because he worships (God) differently.

I am also certain beyond reasonable doubt that when a person lives in love, he lives in God and God will always be with him, no matter what religion he is. And by this belief, my faith stands.

Jesus extended the law to all, not just jews or christians.
Actaully Jesus did this as well, and told people they were wrong, even when they were part of groups who were backbones of the community. Biblically speaking it says to refute anyone who calls themselves christians, and doesn't follow scripture. And it specifically says that if you go back with believers, (followers of Christ who follow Jesus's commands) to refute and show where they are wrong, and that person does not ask for forgiveness, they are supposed to be kicked out of the church.
I think this harmony thing you think of is nice, but not when it allows a man to sin. Remember Jesus didn't come to bring peace, but judgement. If a man did not know he was wrong, then he would not know to turn to God and Jesus.

I understand why you want peace. But your feelings are not from scripture.

From the Words of God, that is shown otherwise. I understand you want peace, but you can't trust your feelings. Feelings can and do mislead us, often. Hitler felt it was ok to kill jews.

God is always with us. But we can't just say what God is. God is not contained by our words, or beliefs.

Then I will allow Jesus to judge me and I will accept His judgement. I cannot judge my neighbors for Him. I can only show them that God's love extends to all and that love brings joy and peace of mind.



Not very neighborly of him.



*shrug* I have faith in His goodness and mercy, that's all. If I'm wrong, then it is sad indeed, for I would have been worshipping the wrong God, then.

Altair, where do you get this knowledge of God?

^_^ Wouldn't you like to know...

lol. just kidding.

What I know comes mostly from my Catholic upbringing. Been through enough catholic school curriculums. I was religious then.

My faith came later on, from experience. I strive now to be spiritual, weaning myself away from worldly ideas, concentrating on strengthening the spirit.

I suppose you're gonna list my faults and my mistakes now ^_^.

No offense, just kidding. It's nice to find a zealot once in a while.

I have a friend exactly like you. ^_^ He gave up trying to convert me a loooong time ago. Too bad, I miss his bugging me. Hmmm... I wonder if he's a pastor now. I promised him I'd go to his church and listen to his sermons if he was the pastor... I should write him...

Actually, my purpose in asking you where you get this knowledge wasn't to critisize you. Although I can see how comparing oneself to bible would make anyone seem wrong, and a sinner. The things I have used are from the bible. My own beliefs, and studies certainly affect view point in other threads like evolution. But spiritually speaking, all my evidence comes from the bible.
Have I listed the faults of anyone? I am fairly sure I haven't. I may have said, "well here it says this, and here it says this, so clarify for me why you think it says something else." It's a slight difference, but a strong one, I feel. Because really speaking I could go blue in the face on a street corner saying all the sins, but change no one. When I point out scripture, and evidence of something conflicting with someone's own beliefs, then they are the ones who making the realization of what they could be basing their thoughts on. Does that make sense? What I'm trying to say, is I'm not saying you're wrong, I am point out some errors in the hopes that the reader may come upon that realization they could be wrong. Since me saying you are wrong, does nothing, you considering the possibility in where you stand means you may look again at your stance. And that is where change takes place. Not when someone else says you're wrong, but when you recognize yourself as needing more information.

A zealot may be strong in their beliefs, but my faith doesn't mean anyone changes other than me. And I'm not worried about me.

Let me give you an example:
Luke 17:2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.
It's really important as you can see, that if we represent Christ, becasue if we tell someone something that leads them to sin, not only are we hurting ourselves, but we could be hurting someone else.

Luke 17:3 So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him."
And here, as you can see, when a brother, (believer in Christ) sins, we're supposed to rebuke, or in otherwords, show them their sin, so they can be restored to God.

If we are christians, we're held to the standard that Jesus is. And the above verses are the words Jesus actually spoke.

Oh, I've yet to see a convincing prophecy yet. They are either so vague as to be able to be fitted to any situation, postdated after the fact, or self fulfilling as people try to make a prediction occur rather than letting it happen as it is supposed to.

But basically where has the bible come up with a good prdiction? (this should probably become a new thread I suppose.)

You missed my point Rogue, though others got it. You have to look outside the box you operate in, the universe doesn't work to your demanded viewpoint.
To anyone who doesn't operate within a religious framework that believes in sin,
it doesn't exist.
It's something that you have thought up for yourselves that has no effect on the real world.
SO you judge people by your own ideological standards and not the ones they live by.

I didn't miss your point GHO. I'm just saying God is in control. Just as a lack of belief does not change Caandaian law, neither does it for God's law.


Anyway, I'll try and get to prophecy on Monday. That's a big subject, and has so many to chose from. Some basic ones are the prophecies of Jesus.

My loving people does not mean I do not point out what they do wrong. In fact, it is because I love them that I tell them what went wrong. I admit, some people just don't get it unless you put it right in front of their noses. But I hesitate to rub it in because I know what it feels like to be at the other end. It feels like stabbing someone who is already down (personal opinion only). I'm not at all sure if that tactic does any good. And if it does not do any good, why use it at all?

^_^ You can preach all you want about the Bible, quoting verses from it. But I really don't get affected anymore since I don't bind myself to all its 'laws'; just the spirit of it.

Actually, Altair I agree with you. Some things I have learned:

That God wants us all to be with Him.
That God can control a Spirit.
That God can change a Spirit.
I have learned most importantly, that God allows people to choose.
That the human spirit can easily choose to not follow God.
So, for example, the difference-A dark spirit(demon) influences a human spirit, can result in lots of changes in person
A human spirit can choose to not follow God, and do so without anymore dark spirits' unfluence.
The result of this, while a human Spirit is influenced by a dark spirit, God can stop the dark spirit, and allow the human spirit to come back to him.
Now, if the Human spirit chooses to not follow, without any influence of the dark spirit, that means God does not influence the human.

So what I am saying, I have no impact on you, or anyone. It's God. If it's God's will, there is nothing I can do wrong. If it's not God's will, then I still have no impact on you. I do not have the ability on my own to change anyone. What is my loss in trying? none.
Something else I learned....
Maybe it's not you God is trying to reach?
Maybe it's the lurker that hasn't even posted yet?

They are God's words, not mine. I do not know the effect those words will have, but God does.

^_^ Ah... now we agree on something.

God has His own plans which we have no knowledge of. The effect He wants to achieve, we cannot be certain of. All we can do is do the best we can with the best of our own ability. ^_^ And hope we did what is right and what is good.

***I realize our conversation is out of topic. My apologies to the others. I will try to post in the appropriate threads on the next ones.

I have never seen a thread with lots of posts stay on topic all the time. It's no big deal. If a point is needed or directed, it will always come back. (if only by asking it again :)

If christian sins are supposed to apply to everybody, then why doesn't the Hindu 'sin' attached to the harm (and eating) of cattle also affect everybody?

Do you just say 'they're wrong'.

In the bible it species that it is not a sin. That anything that you put in your mouth goes through your stomach. Your stomach does not influence you. Your heart influences. Nothing you eat affects your heart.

You still miss the entire point. WHy does your system apply to them, but not theirs to you?

Because God is God. God doesn't say, "And for my peacemakers, you follow the peacemaking rules. For my radical alien believers, you follow these rules to do with space faring creatures."
God applies to all. Not to some. I'd be hardpressed to believe a God that can create every living and unliving thing, bring light in the stars, create galazies, and untold other things we may not be even aware of yet, BUT, this same God can only apply some rules to a few people, as His commands aren't meant for all.

I don't understand that.

Easy to understand version

God is God, not a very, very smart person that's genuinely nice. He's all powerful.

He has given us rules to live by for all. He didn't make special rules for some people.
These rules are to help us build a relationship with Him.

Once again I come up against the wall. I understand that christianity has the stance that it is universal.

What makes you right?

All the other conflicting religions have just as valid a case as the christians.
And the christian rules have no influence on these people, they are often alien and incomprehensible concepts of no relevance.
Christian morals have NO effect on the majority of the world, they just don't apply and often contradict what others KNOW to be the right way to live.

No effect? Have you looked at the countries that are based on those values? Europe, USA, Canada. Those countries impact the world as a whole.

As for what people know, come on, are you telling me you don't make mistakes?
If you do, why do you make mistakes if you know it's wrong? The main reason is, we don't always do the right thing, because we sometimes think selfishly. Other times it's because we don't know all. And othere times yet, it's because doing the right thing is sometimes hard work.

They contradict, because what is right, and what we do are different.

Every country affects every other if that's how you want to look at it, but religions do not neccessarily have an effect on the morality of a culture outside their own. Interaction is not primarily cultural, moral, or religious.

Remember that until relatively recently, the preeminent nations of the world were all non christian, and most of them had never even had any contact with the concept of christian values (which I consider a kick in the teeth for the tower of babel myth).

What's mistakes got to do with it?
Do you mean guilt? I don't have any, anything I have done was because I chose to do so at the time.

If the christian morality (and sin) was a universal truth, then everyone would share it as a basic code, it would be self evidentand at the very least people would know that they are doing something 'wrong'. That's not the case, it's not even a global majority for a moral code.

No I mean people do things that aren't right. Even though they know. And that contradicts the right way to live.



So what countries allow murder? Which ones still think lying is ok in a court of law? What country has laws saying a marriage means fornication is ok?

To me it does seem a majority of the world. But even if it didn't there is the obvious case that people do not do the right thing, even when they know, as evidenced by any person you can look at right now, even if it means going to the mirror, (myself included)

If you look around I'm sure you will find the occasional nation that runs on what we call graft and corruption (Argentina (I think), India, Indonesia for example) where locally it is expected that bribery be used to 'facilitate things. It's a normal part of life and not considered to be wrong or a crime, unless you go too far.

How many societies do you know of that subscribe to polygamy and polyandry, don't have a marriage ceremony of any sort, swap sex partners at will. (Various South Americam Indian tribes, Numerous African Nations, Trobriand Islanders (where incidentally males are not considered neccessary for producing babies and a court case for adultery, brought by a husband who had been away for 10 months to find his wife pregnant, was thrown out because of this) Nepal, various Islamic nations).

Find a country that doesn't condone murder under some circumstances (self defence, executions, war, assisted suicides and abortions (if you actually consider either of those murder or even killing).

The point is that the right thing' to do is different for each individual, let alone a different culture.

Lying in a court of law also comes to a relative acceptance, anyone who benefits from it or sees it as 'for the greater good' obviously sees it as 'the right thing to do'.

Actually I believe you just made a stronger argument that shows people will not do the right thing, they will do the selfish thing.

What happened to the post I just put up here, It has disappeared (not deleted, just gone).

I'll have to do a shorter version then.

No, people do the 'right' thing by their standards, you asked for examples so I gave them. Many of these cultures also possess features that are far superior to christian based ones.

It's just that they don't subscribe to the 'rightness' you expect because you are rooted in christian morality.

And from a neutral POV the 'selfish' thing is the smart and natural thing for the individual to do for personal survival.
We only consider other people for selfish reasons, because all the individuals in a communal effort tend to benefit more from it than they would in individual efforts.

Oops, sorry, I deleted it outright, instead of editing a delete. I sent the entire post to you and why I deleted it however.

Didn't know you could delete without trace. I always thought if left a message "deleted by ..."

Just curious, has anyone read the Jack Chick Dark Dungeons comics?  Classic reading, if ever there was some.

Kinda funny, when I got into roleplaying, I was worried how my parents would take it.  I did research on presenting it to them carefully, explaining its a game, etc.  I had everything prepared, expecting to take about half an hour to ease their fears.

Five seconds into the conversation, my dad dismissed it.  A month later I realized how he really wasn't worried when he made a gnomish cleric with a flatulence problem and a big sombrero.  *sigh*

I've read the jack trick comics. I have issues with multiple gods, and what that teaches. I stay away from forgotten realms and dragonlance, etc. I do like medieval worlds based on history however.

(Jack CHick, btw, for anyone googling it).

His comics are terrific!!  I've read a good number of them.  The RPG one is probably his best work, IMO, but some of the Catholic ones, about how we actually worship the Sun is also very neat.  I read through one of the essays they had on why Catholicism is wrong.  Very good essay, except by 'Catholic' they meant 'a made up religion we call Catholic, because we'd prefer not to do any research on our own.'

If anyone has some free time and needs a laugh, I highly recommend his site.  But try to stay to the subjects you really know something about.  Most of his information appears to be urban legends, so if you don't know any better, they aren't really as funny.

I think that he did a really good one on Jesus's death, put it in to perspective.  ..at least I think that one was a chick tract.

Anyway, as far as gaming goes, I think that it can be either good or bad.  I never play an evil character, and will never DM characters that are evil.  I think that going through rape murder torture role play is not something that brings out the good in people.

Wish I'd seen this thread earlier. I read the first few posts and the lst few. Don't have time to go through 4 pages (Gaming and more real life stuff to do). If anything I say covers what's already been beaten to death, I apologize in advance.

I think I have a fairly unique perspective on this. MY gaming career was brought to an abrupt halt in the mid-80s when my parents (neither of whom was especially religious back then) saw "the episode" of 20/20. those who were RPing at the time know exactly what episode I refer to. the truth of the matter is, it sent my gaming underground for a few years as I went through a fairly typical teenage rebellion. At one point it got so bad that, when my brother caught me playing D&D, I forced him to make a character and play with us so that he would not have adequate blackmail material without implicatting himself.

In 1988, at the age of 17, I became a Christian. The Lord convicted my heart of playing at that time. PArt of the reason was that I was genuinley obsessed (as one must be to manage to DM 5 days a week while forbidden to have the material at home). Gaming affected my grades, my more healthy friendships, and my relationships with my parents in negative ways. Of course, it can be argued (and I would agree) that it was not gaming that was the problem, but obsessiveness. It probably added to it that the next module I was to DM was "Queen of the Demonweb Pits", so reading a lot about the "demonic"(admittedly fictitious) aspects of the game at a time when I was new to the faith probably had a lot to do with why I chose to put D&D away. On top of that, I ran face first into that irritating little comand to "honor thy father and thy mother". Therefore, I threw away all my hidden materials, gave back those that didn't belong to me, and came clean with my parents (who still were not particularly religious).

As a young Christian, I wanted nothing to do with games that even touched on the occult, particularly since I had previously had a great deal of interest in the occult (which started with playing D&D to some extent).I still maintained friendships with my gaming friends....I just ducked out when the 20 siders started rolling. Interestingly enough, the first people to witness to me about Jesus were my gaming friends. Go figure. At any rate, I had always said that if they could show me a game that didn't deal at all with occult themes, I'd love to play (I tried Suipers and Sci-Fi, but these invariably had undertones that were at least mildly occultic). A couple years later, I found Boothill and was hooked. I had other friends who played GURPS, but never got around to gaming together.

As a more mature Christian, I would say whether or not one should game depends largely on one's ability to discern reality from gaming and keep the two seperate, as well as not letting gaming get in the way of more important, real life issues (believe it or not, they exist). What types og games one should play, if one is a Christian, should largely come from one's own convictions. Assumming there is an active walk with Christ, GOd will make very clear to you what He does or does not want you to do, if you seek Him about it.

In recent years, I stay in the gaming community in part to be a witness for Jesus Christ here. I still tend to avoid games that are heavy on the sorcery side of things (personal preferance as much as conviction these days), but I don't begrudge others if they wish to play them, so long as they are able to keep things in perspective.I also made a brief divurgence from this to try to get a game going based on the Chronicles of Narnia....very much fantasy themed, but with a lot of it allegorical to the life of Christ.

As for the initial question, I think playing a character of faith (or, better yet, one who comes to faith in the process of the story,) is a perfectly good way to put your faith out there without being overly intrusive. that doesn't mean a person of faith can't or shouldn't play other types of characters as well. Part of the fun of role playing (and contrary to some religious opinion, fun is not, in and of itself, a sin) is getting to be somebody we aren't. Again, it comes down to keeping things in the proper perspective.

Ah yes, 1988, when being a gamer was somehow 'cool' and 'dangerous', not geeky like it is now...

My dad is a deacon, both of my parents are very strong in the Church.  When I got into roleplaying games, I was a bit nervous about how they'd take it.  So I went ahead and prepared a little thing on what its all about ad why they don't have to worry about my soul.  I approached my father who, much to my surprise, said 'yeah, go ahead and play, that's fine.'  Within thirty seconds, I was done.  *shrug*  He even played a cleric in a very brief game I ran (albeit, a bean burrito cleric).

My personal favorite game is Shadowrun, where the PCs play professional criminals.  I love cyberpunk in general, playing in a gritty, dangerous world.  I've played evil characters, as well as good ones.  It's encouraged me to study (aka google) voodoo, read Lovecraft, dl a copy of the (fictitious) necronomicon, follow up on the templar knights and the witchcraft trials of Salem and examine the Babylonian pantheon.

Never once have I been tempted to 'cast a spell' (actually, I'd feel pretty stupid trying to cast most of the spells I found.  They're blatantly fake.)  I've made all of my findings public, and I regularly touch base with my father and my wife (I've not had as close a relationship with my priest as before.  We just moved, so I'm new to the church.)  While my writing skill has improved immensely, and I want to take a lockpicking class, the worst threat I've faced is an angry wife because I want to post when she wants me to do the dishes.  It did, however, encourage me to apply to several law enforcement agencies (where I was mostly turned down for being a weak computer geek).

Barnabas is right on the money.  The biggest threat is losing that line between reality and fiction, letting yourself get obsessed.  If I honestly believed in Cthulu, or if I tried to cast a spell from the necronomicon, I wouldn't just be stupid, I'd have reached the point where I'm honestly dangerous to myself or others.  But as long as I test what I read, I research what the Babylonian gods REALLY are, and remember why I am Christian, I'm not concerned.  I compare what I see in one book to what is in a book I trust (like the bible or the catechism) to check myself.

I think the thing that worries me most about many Christians, especially Christian parents, is they use blinders on themselves.  The bible says be careful what you let in, and don't surround yourself by these things.  But it doesn't say pretend like it doesn't exist either.  Wiccan is a real religion, and it's our duties to learn about it before we condemn it.  As always, keep a safety line when you're exploring new information, but it is our duty to know what is going on in our world so we can know how to respond to it, or how to respond to our children when they encounter it.  Balance in all things, not too much, nor too little information.  I think by virtue of everyone being here and reading these other threads, that's certainly a sign that each of us is making an honest and constructive effort to explore what else is out there, and to be prepared for it.

Back to this subject, if someone were to run a game based on a Biblical time frame and setting, would anyone here be interested? If so, what time frames interest you? I had some ideas that would be interesting, and wonderred what you think......

(1) Jeptha'a band (from Judges)
(2) David's mighty men
(3) a game set during or shortly before the Exodus
(4) the Maccabean revolt (admittedly not biblical, but historical between the Testaments)
(5) the Persecuted Church(several time slots would work for this one)


what other ideas sound interesting? If we have enough interest, I might be willing to set something up.

I would be interested in playing. I admit that could change depending on system. I may not be able to know all the basics of the times you suggest, I would be willing to do a little research to be somewhat able to know what is going on.

count me in too, sounds fun!

other possibilities could include a (rel;atively) contemporary game....

a persecuted church game could be set in....
(1)present day Sudan
(2)present day anywhere in the middle east
(3)recent or present day China
(4)USSR or Soviet Bloc
(5)near future, post-rapture(a la Left Behind)
etc.

though I'm certainly not Mormon or sympathetic to Mormon beliefs, I had even considerred running a Boothill game set on the Mormon trail, but decided against it. Interesting history, regardless of my disagreements.

The contempory games have my interest as well. Left Behind is a neat premise, and you could combine any of those ideas(one through four) with it. Like basing it in Russia when the Rapture happens.

I wasn't involved in the subject early on in order to cobble something together.  I'm pretty tired but I can work a post out for the time being.

AD&D and role-playing was a part of every field trip, camp out, summer activity, or whatever we planned.  The books always came with me and hardly left my side from 1984 through '93 or even '94.  A mixture of activities between the Boy Scouts and my Unitarian groups kept me on the leading edge of a lot of crative ideas and thoughts that led me farther in life and I would never wish that someone would have their books taken away or looked at in some demeaning way.

I had a Drill Sergeant when I went through Arizona the first time that couldn't stand the sight of them on my shelf but couldn't do anything about it because it would be considered discrimination.  I didn't play much through the mid-90's but got heavily involved in RoleMaster who devotes a whole book to the development of an extensive religious system.  My friend who GM's a sincere RoleMaster campaign has a 120-page sourcebook for his own world.  It's an amazing read!  I've doctored much of my 7th Sea material, which has a system akin to Renaissance europe, to include some non-secular groups and a few other things.

I think I would probably be most interested in running a game during the Olt Testament period. The New Testament would provide a lot of challenges as far as presenting the church doctrines in a non sectarian way (ie, might be hard for Pentecostals, Catholics, Baptists, and Mormons to play together without a doctrinal debate breaking out)

I just started a class on Biblical Geography, so I have two brand new shiny Holy Land atlasses with all kinds of neat satalite image 3D maps that have the GM in me drooling. If there is an interest, I would just have to figure out what system to use(or use one of my homebrew ideas).

If we got an Old Testament(or inter-testament) game going, which of the following time periods sounds most interesting?


(1) Abrahamic times (perhpas the 318 that rescued Lot)
(2) the Exodus (probably starting during the captivity)
(3) the 40 years in the wilderness
(4) the conquest of Canaan
(5) the time of the judges (perhaps in between judges during captivity)
(6) during the reign of Saul (perhaps dealing with the war against Philistia)
(7) David's men while fleeing from Saul
(8) David's men while fighting Absalom's rebellion
(9) During the divided kingdom(interested in Israel or Judah?)
(10) the Maccabean Revolt

Hi...my son has an idea for a game he would like to try to run (with my help) based on a series of books he is reading, called "Young Believers on Tour". The basic premise of the books is that of a group of Christian teenagers in a band on tour. If anyone is interested, I will be setting it up as "YB2" under contemporary. The characters will be prefabbed. He actually has some pretty good ideas of where he wants to go with this, so feel free to check it out. The game will be run more or less as a moderated free form.

I think it'd be cool to do the time of the judges a whole lot of stuff happened then that was really incredable.

I will try to set something up for one or two of these ideas in the next couple of weeks.....right now, we just burried my mother in law, so I've been rather busy.

All right, uh, haven't really read most of the posts here, hope no-one minds me jumping in.

1) What's the problem with D&D?  I play it, and I'm not possessed.  I don't feel this game to be wrong in any way.  If anything, it promotes creative thought and storytelling.

2) What's the problem with Ouija boards?  95% of people who use them use them wrong, anyways, so what's the problem?  Is the Christian church so worried that, by usign a friggin toy, we'd discover the truth or something?

3) I've played Painkiller.  I'd be playing it right now, but I got Raven Shield installed (stupid small HDD).  A lot of Christians don't like this game, and I don't know why.  If anything, it's good.  I mean, you're thrust into purgatory and you have to help heaven defeat demon hordes.  Where's the problem there?  Sure, there's gore, but it's also one of the funnest mind-numbing shooters out there.

D+D can be argued on several issues. People are divided on this at times. Main reasons why some christians are against the game are things such as roleplaying classes such as thieves, clerics of gods that are not God, assassins, druids(same as cleric), and sorcerers, and mages(the whole magic thing) Usually most groups contain their character classes.  Other things would include use of magic spells, (real or not), and the usual stance of multiple gods, a pantheon, which is not God.


What's a toy doing with a spirit inside that gets out of control? The christians do not like the ouji board precisely because of demons.

Never played, don't know anything about it even.

Meh, I suppose so.  But, it's just a friggin game, get a grip, people.  There's nothing wrong with imagination, is there?  No, there isn't.




Simply enough, I actually used it to conjure a spirit.  The stupid Wal-Mart ouija boards work as well as grilling an egg in a freezer.  I used a custom-made board, which I infused with my energy.  Spirits can feed off of this, and that's what drew one to me.  Also, most people do it with a partner (mistake #1).  When this happens, one person will most likely trick the other into thinking the board's actually working (mistake #2).  Also, if someone DOES use it on there own, they often do it wrong, letting the pointer jerk around, instead of moving it smoothly (mistake #3).  Finally, few people charge the board first (mistake #4).  Oh, and most people don't even burn incense that wards Trickster spirits (mistake #5).  The incense is a simple mix.  I forgot which, but it's either 1/3 tobacco 2/3 frankinsence or 2/3 tobacco 1/3 frankinsence.



http://www.painkillergame.com/index2.php

Basically, like I said, you work for the angels fighting off the armies of hell, which are trying to take over purgatory and then force EVERYONE who dies to become a demon, and not go to heaven.  Quite a good premise, IMHO.  Not much for story during the game, but it's so fun no-one cares.

^_^

Difference being, not everyone considers it a game. I did remember one thing else about D+D, (and any other rpg) that is takes time away from family, God, etc. Anything that you spend more time at then things you should be doing is considered idol worship. It's a balance.




Sounds like an awful lot of things could go wrong. Particularly if used correctly, they are meant to bring spirits that are demons.  I think this goes back to why christians do not like them.

Does that answer your question why christians do not like them?

Yeah, I guess I almost answered my own question.

XD

With a little know-how, and a simple banishing ritual, there's nothign to worry about, though.

And I believe there is a difference between demons and spirits.

crazy.....I dunno....seen some strange things with Ouija boards in my B.C. days.....for a Christian, the Bible forbids consulting with the dead or with familiar spirits, or any other form of divination. We can go into that if you like, but it's really outside of the subject of "Religion and Gaming" as Ouija is not really a game, but a device used for divination and necromancy.

D&D is kinda touch and go, but I think it's far more cultural than religious.

A lot of people are complaining that playing games and watching movies with violence increases the propensity of that person committing acts of violence.  Some studies have been done to suggest this is so.  This would address your game, Painkiller, since it is a game about violence.  So if we accept that engaging and watching an action (violence, thievery, premarital sex, etc.) increases the odds of the person doing it, it would be prudent to limit how much we watch, right?

Personally, I've found the studies weak at best, and the entire idea can be taken way too far.  I'm a supporter of properly labelling games and tv shows, but not limiting them.

D&D is a particularly special case.  In the early 90's, some lady got effectively a mail-order document making her a PI.  Her son, who was mentally unstable in part because she was a horrible mom, killed himself.  One of his hobbies was D&D.  She promptly ignored the nasty friends, drug use, poor environment etc. and focused in on D&D.  She started a huge campaign with made up, super-inflated numbers on the number of cults relating to this, and it spread from there.  Jack CHick has an excellent comic on the subject (Dark Dungeons, I think it is), which is absolutely hilarious.  I *HIGHLY* recommend you look it up, you will be richly rewarded.  In fact, the whole thing was great.  I believe the group to look up is MADD, Mothers Against Dungeons & Dragons (not to be confused with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers).

If you get a chance, google it.  It is *HILARIOUS* the things they claimed.

After some time, people actually did studies.  They found that, on average, people who play roleplaying games are more likely to do well in school, less likely to commit suicide, and generally more intelligent and emotionally stable than those who don't.  There's never been a 'D&D cult' found.  So in general, the whole campaign gradually faded away as people realized they'd been suckered.


Personally, I play Shadowrun a ton, where the point is your'e a career criminal.  There's magic, gunfights and general butt kicking.  Lots of fun, but in general pretty non-Christian.

Yeah, I suppose seeing violence and stuff would promote it.  But, with Painkiller at least, you're fighting demons.  Isn't that kinda good, Christianwise?

I'll go look up that comic.

BTW, I hate socker moms, they cause more problems than they fix.  Wait, they haven't fixed anything...

'nuff said

Fighting demons doesn't mean christian.

Did I say that?  No.  I merely stated that Painkiller portrays the view of heaven/God/angels good, demons/Hell/Satan bad.

I didn't say you said that. I was stating that thinking demons are bad does not mean christian is good.

All right, sure, whatever.

Does killing bad guys make it a good game?  Eh... Debatable.  But it certainly makes it better than GTA : )

Don't get down on soccer moms too much.  I mean my mom was middle class, white, stay-at-home, Christian mother of three, yet she let me play GTA (on the condition that I not use it as practice for my driving test.)  She also let me lead a D&D group after I explained it to them.  I think a lot of that was misinformation, and the behavior of the child.  Since I was a totally nonviolent geek child with no access, nor apparent interest, in firearms or actual combat...  I don't think there's any question the Columbine shooters needed a little LESS violent influences in their lives.  Perhaps their response to their natural difficulties would have been more moderate.

In the end, there's no question we live in a gun culture, and it shows.  But everyone needs to do their research before they pass an overall ban on anything.

Here's Dark Dungeons.  Your initiation into gaming is not complete without reading it:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

I HIGHLY recommend reading the other tracks (although mostly the ones you know something about).  The majority of them are not at all researched, and total propaganda.  I love them!  I want a book of them.

And just a reminder, don't let one crazy Christian spoil the bunch.  He was pretty out there in left field.

lol, that Dark Dungeons thing was hilarious.  The first 2 panels are similar to an actual D&D game but, after that, it's all hogwash.  I was laughing the entire way through that.  Thanks, ya made my day.

People linked the Columbine shooting to video games because the kid(or was it kids? I can't remember) actually made a detailed map of his school in some game (I think it was Doom).  He gave himself unlimited ammo and just ran around shooting everything.  The map was accurate to, like, where desks were and everything.

EDIT: I just read a couple more tracks on that site.  They have some very incorrect views of other religions, and are actually incredibly hateful.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:10, Sun 13 Feb 2005.

Yep.  As I said though, I do hope you don't judge all Christians by a few well published such as he.  Some of us may be crotchety and cynical, but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy your presence ; P

Oh, hell no, I don't judge Christians bad in any which way.  If I made it sound like I did EVER, I apologize for that.  I live in town of 3k with 7 churches (O_o), so most of my friends are Christian.  Few of em act like it, but they are.

^_^

It's a good faith.  I may not believe in it, but its teachings are good.

One of the reasons I don't like christianity is because I don't like it's teachings.  I haven't really like christianity since I went into church for the first time with my grandmother when I was...3 maybe.

Are you sure you have the right thread?

We sorta sidetracked into Christianity...

But this is sorta the wrong thread for that.

Oops sorry, the subject was slowly sliding into christianity as Crazy said.  Anyhow, back to gaming...

I was reading the first few posts on this thread, and for some reason I've enjoyed playing female character's and often fantasized about them & what could happen to them... I know I was sick then, and I am somewhat still -- I'm still working on getting healed from my sex addiction.

My faith has been a real helper, without my Christian beliefs I would have delved deeper into porn and what not.

I wonder if gaming sastiated the Lust I desired, and prevented me from having other experiences. I have never had sex beside my wife for example, I say that in a prideful way, although I've had thousands of sexual fantasies -- so I have been an adulterer in the heart.

Less than six months after I got baptized into the LDS church, someone told me that d&d was wrong and that church leader's advised against such gaming. Ever since I believed that the spirit somehow comfirmed to me that message, and felt each time that I was gaming that I was betraying my faith.

So here I am at rpol, with serious faith issues... becuase I'd love to roleplay but at the sametime... I think I shouldn't.

Sorry for blurting out my life here, and at the same time thank you for the space to vent out my feelings and be heard.

I don't feel that D+D is a safe game, or that it is harmless.

There are other options to playing that aren't betraying to God.

Can you expand on that, rogue?  ...Given that most of the creators and developers of the game were Christian...

This is just from Wikipedia, so take it as it is:



As you can see, AD&D removed the objectionable material to pacify the religious objectors, although much was added back in with 3rd edition as optional play if people wanted.

So I don't really see the concern...

Remeber our definitons of christian do vary.

Here are some problem with D+D.

It has mutliple gods that are accepted as "equals"
It has sorcerers, and thieves as options that are usually required for the full adventure.
Sorcery being against God's word, and thieves are an issue since they steal, which is bad as well.
How about a monk, which is often considered asian based, with yin/yang philophy.
Druids, similar to pagans.
Cleric, again nothing like God the father, but priests of the god of the sun, or night, or animals, etc.

It has codes of conduct, rules that charascters can live with. They are called Lawful evil, chaotic good, neutral. You can follow these conducts, and be considered to be doing good.

How about ideas of the occult? Look at the various source books out there. I have heard of a new book (new to me anyway) where the magic described in includes knowing secret names, and demonology.

It is due to these things, that I cannot suggest it is good for play. If you know truth, then you won't be fooled by lies. But many people don't know truth. So there is still some issues here.

Role playing games doesn't translate as evil. But I think I have pointed out elements that are certainly not good.

Well, they were mostly Protestants, Catholics, and one Mormon.  I consider all of these people Christians.


But you don't worship them.  They are merely pawns in a fantasy world.

So does Disney...

You're talking about real sorcery, not play acting.  There's a huge difference there for people who can tell reality from fantasy.  If people can't, then I agree with you.

Thieves are actually "rogues," which is a play on the burlar idea of Tolkien...being able to sneak around and do things like that.  The idea does not necessarily encompass stealing, although it could be played that way.

What's wrong with all that?


Yes, but part of a fantasy...


No, your "character" can follow them.  It is not about reality.


So don't use them.  You don't have to listen to Hard Rock to enjoy music, after all.

INteresting article:  http://3rdedition.org/articles/viewer.asp?ID=67

Heath, logically your points have merit. However, remember back in the 8-'s and 90's (maybe now as wel), but men would "read playboy just for the articles". Certainly the articles were well written, at least I assume they were. Howver, playboy contains articles, and pictures. The articles weren't the problem, it was the pictures that lead one to sin more.

Same thing with D+D.

Some quick points:

1)  There are plenty more games around than just D&D.  You're welcome to sample any of them!  So you can roleplay without WotC.  That said, Deg's problem sounds like it's related to the company he keeps, not the activities he engages in.  I expect he has similar problems watching girl's basketball, so the whole question of whether D&D is safe or not is rather moot in that point.  Play D&D with an all guy's group if you want, or an all non-humanoid group (it's tough to lust after a kobold).  I will admit that D&D and in fact most RPG books tend to show women as being a lot more feminine and showing off a lot more skin than is strictly necessary.

2)  D&D is just a game.  There has been no evidence that indicates playing D&D has increased the incidence of occult practice, immoral sexual behavior, immorality, belief in pagan religions, etc.  And in fact D&D has been shown to increase self-esteem and confidence, creativity and intelligence, all useful tools to AVOID falling into sin.  Of course, there are individuals who are prone to have problems when playing D&D, just like there are people who are more prone to alcoholism or sexual deviance.  These people need special accomodations, which is fine.  THere's also such a thing as taking the game too far, just like you can do with anything.  But I've heard of that going on far less with D&D than with something like World of Warcraft.

I find Katisara's point very interesting. I would personally be lusting over girls playing basketball, hence it wouldn't be healthy for me to watch an all girls basketball team.

Same issue with d&d, it's the content that I lust for due my sex addiction that affects me.

I can accept the fact that there is nothing wrong in d&d, but what is wrong is me. I need healing, and I don't think I'll find healing in a d&d enviroment no matter how much I enjoy the game. Hence, d&d is best if it isn't for me the same as would an all girls basketball-team.

I would reiterate my question though, what if you took the triggers out of D&D?  There's no reason you can't run a game full of ugly, male characters.  A party made up completely of dragons or gelatanous blobs or kobolds wouldn't be especially attractive to me.  I'd assume you don't lust after dragons either.

So would it be alright to play in a game like that?

That would take away my primary reason for playing the game, LOL.

I once played a Paladin for about a year online. It was cool, I still wanted to rescue the damsel in distress... there weren't really many triggers for me on that game and it was cool.

The not cool part for me would be that I would have to play either behind my wife's back or without her support and approval. Neither is attractive to me.

That would be the only set back in playing in a game full of Kobolds of the sorts without any triggers.

I really don't understand what you mean.



You play it for the lustful parts?  Yeah, in that case I'd drop it :P



Why would your wife not support your playing a game which isn't bad for you?

Because she thinks it's bad for me, and there is nothing on this earth that will make her change her mind. Trust me.

Ah, if she thinks ALL roleplaying is bad for you then it's a different matter.  Some battles aren't worth fighting.  But in that case, I sorta wonder why you're here...

I came to rpol, for a lust hit.

And in that sense, I shouldn't even be here.

I guess you can say I'm testing my luck. :).

Ciao.

In essence, roleplaying is taking a role.  Psychiatrists use it as a tool, actors use it...we all play roles.  Some are fantasy, some are accepting the responsibilities of reality (father, husband, etc.)  Heck, even when I was training to be a missionary, we would "roleplay" the tough questions to see how to respond.

So if it brings about bad things in you, then it can be damaging.  If it becomes addicting so that you neglect the important things, then it can be harmful.  If you start burning incense and praying to the gods in the game, then you need psychiatric help (just joking).

In any case, it's not the game that's bad, it's how it is played.  Sure, if you play it for lustful reasons, you should avoid it until you've purged yourself of that.  I once stayed in a Paranoia game (about 18 years ago) at college because I liked the girl playing with us, but the game itself was not about lust or roleplaying something inappropriate.

I understand what you are saying. Sometimes the temptations are difficult. Here's wat I was taught. If you go to a certain store knowing it has plenty of beautiful women, and that will cause fantasy to be thought of, such as thinking about what you may see during the entire drive over, and then you wander the aisles for a longer time, looking for what you expect, then how you solve this is by not going to this store anymore.

I might suggest this site is to close to the edge for you. It's a tough stance, but one that might be best for you Deg. That you can admit your faults so freely suggests you want as much help as you can get. And that's a good thing. Addictions cannot be fought on their own.

Sneaking behind your wife pretty much says you know this is something you can't do. Even if something is ok, and it results in family issues, well, family comes first. I think you know this Deg, and while I don't want you to leave, I do want you to do well with your family. I have prayed for you today, and want you to keep praying to do God's will.

That's right.  Get the priorities straight first, then see where you stand as it relates to gaming.

So...  I guess Deg is now the shortest lived 'active' poster on the forum, huh?  I mean, 7 posts and he agrees he really shouldn't be here?

Maybe this forum is good for him...

I'm still alive, although the only reason left for me to come back to rpol is community chat. Thank you for your prayers Rogue, I do believe in their power and effect.

I do agree that the best thing to do is to avoid rpol entirely, until I can count with my wife support... which would be never. One of my hugest problems, is that my wife doesn't like any of my hobbies (gaming), I wish I could have that back. However, I'll have to sacrifice gaming in order to have a family. This is how my wife always solves things, and I'm not happy with this resolution, and this is what frustuates me and gets me on my nerve everynow and then.

I can understand your difficulty.  Unfortunately, anything we might say to help you fix the problem would be from the source your wife disagrees with.  I'd have to recommend you find another mediator or forum to get advice from so she can't complain it's just more gamers trying to pull you back in.  Regardless, it IS a problem you and she have to work out.  If you can't settle your problems together, you're going to have a very difficult time in the future.

If you're interested in joining one of my games, which would not be "adult," you'd be welcome to.  I run a Star Frontiers campaign (all rules online), and a GURPS campaign in the Matrix setting (some rules online).

That is, assuming it's the gaming and storytelling that you like.  Your wife might be more supportive if she knew you were playing with an LDS person with the same values (and not a D&D game).  Of course, if she's like my wife, she'll just think it's silly.  Heck, it kind of is...

And I would suggest both of you read a book called "His Needs, Her Needs."  In it you will see that playing games (recreation, competition, etc.) is a fundamental need of men but not so important for women.

I HIGHLY recommend you both read that book.  It lets women and men understand each other better from a Christian perspective.  And if she just doesn't want you to do it, then engage in an activity with her and *sigh* forget about gaming for now.

Thx for the input, I appreciate it. I'll look for that book, but living in Mexico will make it somewhat more difficult.

That's why God created Amazon.com  :)

Hmm. I would have thought that it was kind of androgynous. If you think about it, the competitiveness is kind of masculine, while the creation and caring for of a character seems more of a feminine type of thing. Combining the two creates androgyny.

Does the book define "playing games" as physical, gambling or such cooperative gaming as we practice here?

I agree.  Obviously, the social aspect of roleplaying would feed more into the typical female "need."  The book, as I recall, talks about "recreational companionship" as a priority for men, which includes sports, games, etc. It didn't talk about roleplaying or anything.

I primarily recommended the book because women have a difficult understanding a man's need for recreation, just as men often have a difficult time understanding the social "talking just to talk" aspect that women need.

If you look here, it's under Chapter 6  https://www.marriagebuilders.c...bi6100_needstoc.html

And this is what the book is about:  http://www.marriagebuilders.co...c/mbi6020_needs.html

Bump for Tzuppy

Thanks.

The question I'd like to raise is if any of you are familiar with any RPGs that deal with religious issues in interesting manner. I am especially interested in role of clergy in society and metaphysics (or pseudometaphysics) of religion, miracles etc..

I am familiar with Mage: the Ascension and Warhammer 40,000, but that's about it.

Ars Magica (precursor to Mage) touched on it.  I'm writing an RPG which will delve pretty heavily into it.

I wrote in my intro that I'm familiar with Ars Magica, but in my opinion religion plays a miniscule role in it. (I've just finished reading Mythic Judaism.) In Ars Magica, however, religious characters (be they Christian, Muslim or Jewish) are intentionally kept far less glamorous than Hermetics.

Care to elaborate on that RPG of yours?

My wife and I did a story in person for about four years now while we went on walks in the evening and when I had free time at work.  Basically it takes our modern world + magic + a complex, political afterlife with gods and all that.  The character plays on earth for a while, having neat adventures, then dies and becomes a soul so she can have adventures in the afterworld, then maybe gets employed by a god and elevated to an angel and so on.  Since I read a LOT of mythology, philosophy and religion, I had a fair bit to bring in.

Are using any rules?

Yes, something like a mix between Shadowrun and Exalted.  It's still in playtesting, however.

Let me know if it bears fruit.

There is one I just downloaded but haven't gotten a chance to read yet called "Holy Lands".  From a breif glimps it looks to follow AD&D rules and feel pretty closely.

That doesn't sound like much of a compliment. :\

Anyone played In Nomine?

I played it, not huge on it.

Adopting powers from Scion: Hero to simulate divine blessings of Judæo-Christian God, good or bad idea?

It depends on how sacrigileous the game is.  Done in the right spirit, well, is acting how Bible plays or making up your own apocryphal stories about situations that might have occured in those days but were never written down, is all that a bad thing?  If it's tasteful and done well, it could be a good idea, possibly, I guess.  I hope that's a definitive enough answer for you. ;)

The sacrilegious parts (assuming you mean origins of scions) can easily removed. It's just about making a game based on religious believes (not to mention simulate Christian paradigm in Mage).

http://images.wikia.com/yugioh...rofBabelIOC-EN-C.jpg

This has to be my current guilty pleasure card; I always try to use it when I play, but I've never been able to pull it off successfully to my favor as of yet.

Like other cards based on uhh...legends, tales...whatever you call the story of Babylon, the designers made the card rules match perfectly with the flavor of Judaism/Christian morals (but what do I know).

If either your opponent dabbles in magic/spells too much while this card is on the field, a heavy blow is dealt to the one who "builds" the final floor.

A thought occurred to me, in that which I might share to others.

I play DnD, which some (let's take my cousin and her husband for an example) think is an evil thing.  Or rather, they saw my book and said "oh, that's evil".

Alright.

So then I looked over the whole point of roleplaying games, and compared that to nonroleplaying games, and then finally to DnD.

So as I said, a thought occured to me, and I promptly looked up what the source was.

Romans 9:21
Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel to honor, and another to dishonor?

The DnD rules are not a vessel, but a lump of clay, from which we may create our own vessel.  If you don't want to include certain parts in the game, you simply don't.

Of course, I'm talking about 3rd edition.  4th edition, however, is indeed the devil, yes :)

Not being religious, all I can say is this:

Gaming is just a fancy version of Let's Pretend, the game we all played as children.  Did that make us evil?

Now, more than three years later, are there any results one could download?


And one more thing. I need a quick mechanic for Temptations for my Judeo-Christian RPG.

Wow, almost completely forgot that project :)

It's actually about 70-80% together, but the missing pieces are pretty big. But after freelancing in the industry, I realized that trying to market an RPG system is NOT what I want to do. I'd rather write and leave the heavy lifting to someone else. And because I'm going to pull chunks of the RPG into fiction, I won't be releasing my notes (at least, not without a lot of begging and alcohol), so long story short, 'no', not available for download.

Let me know when you do release that fiction.


Would you be up for some game development cooperation?
This message was last edited by the player at 14:12, Tue 05 July 2011.

If by 'development' you mean 'publicity, layout, contract oversight and artwork', sure! If those were settled, I'd be happy to pull the project out :P

My current work in process is a very different setting. Because my wife was involved in the RPG setting, I'm letting that lay for the moment. However, I did put out a mission for Eclipse Phase called Continuity, I've got some work scheduled for an upcoming release called Rimward, and another adventure I shouldn't speak about yet owing to NDAs and all that.

Out of curiosity, what tact did you take in your religion RPG? Something along the lines of In Nomine? sim Religions? Maybe something like the Illuminati card game but with religions?

Not sure if you're asking me or katisara, but in my RPG I've used universal belief in god, religion, but not necessary the ritual and church. I've used God of Justice (who should not be mentioned by name) as the only true and benevolent deity and all other to be shunned. I've assigned priests some power in healing and defense in line of WarCraft III, since after all this will be WarCraft in space (and not StarCraft, which is wild west in space).



I'm afraid I'm not in that league. I was hoping I'd get a professional game designer to take a look at some ideas I have and then to run a game at RPoL.



I just realized, I've known you for years and I still don't know any module you wrote.

Silveroak,

The way I played it out is that there is a grand and mysterious 'God'. God keeps above everything. He hears prayers, but avoids interfering directly. He's not associated with any particular religion, so you can play him up as the Christian God, Cronos or whatever.

Under God is a staff of administrators, or 'gods'. They're formally roles, which are occupied by individuals temporarily. Some of those individuals are divine creations, and some of them are humans who, through whatever means, have seized that role. In that regard, it's like the Piers Anthony Death series. The gods occaisionally get orders from God. They also are obliged to fulfill their roles, or things go either wrong, or very wrong. They also compete for believers or souls.



AHH ... got it. Sure, I'd be happy to read over what you have. I'll rmail you my email address. It'll be bottom of the pile, of course :P but I can read over it.

As a head's up, I wouldn't call myself a 'game designer'. The best I can put on my resume as professional work is a game freelancer; doing research, writing modules, writing color, stuff like that. But my background is pretty math heavy, so I'm happy to dig through mechanics as well.



That's alright :) I tend for niche things. I'm writing for interest, not for the money. But I'm up for an Ennie this August! :)

This is almost exactly that I had in mind for my Byzantium inspired game here on RPoL. I had envisioned one overarching deity known as the God of Justice who was the main source of worship, while the rest are viewed as minor gods, angels and demons or saints depending on the province of the empire.

And then I divided that Religion skill covers the supreme god, while Occult covers the rest. And along similar lines is a division between blessings and miracles on one hand and spells on the other.



Got it and I've sent you an email. Still I don't have anything I'd keep from general public. Is there any reason why I shouldn't repost/link it here?



Now you're being modest. Is industry professional better?



I doubt it's heavier than mine. That's why it happens sometimes that bad game mechanics spoil otherwise great story for me.



Well if it's nominated, than I must know which one it is.

Not that I can think of :) Just bear in mind, it's easier to keep a secret than it is to make something public into a secret. Once it's out, it's out.



You could call me an 'industry professional', although I'll still blush and wave it away :P

This game began as an idea to transfer aesthetics of developed Christian art into an SF genre. Human campaign of WarCraft III was especially influential to the idea. Here's quick campaign overview.


Pilintor, also known as the empire, is a city-state on a fictional Earth roughly a century and a bit into the future. The grandiose nickname is in stark contrast to how little Pilintor actually controls in Sol system. On Earth they control precious little land beyond Pilintor arcology itself and several mining stations scattered around asteroid belt and moons of Jupiter. Still, it is far more important than these hundred thousand square kilometers on map.

Main reason for this is that Pilintor is a decade or two ahead of the rest of Earth when it comes to technology. Explanation for that can be sought in history or theology, but in the end it all comes down to Empire of Echran, whose last remnant Pilintores proudly boast to be. Echran (also known as the First State because of its power) was for nearly two millennia without a question most powerful state in the world. And while the technology has since moved on, their achievements in philosophy, culture and state management remain unparalleled. Make no mistake, in these days Pilintor was not exactly central to the empire. Still province of Pilintor was most dedicated to imperial protocols and faith. Due to that, as well as its inaccessible terrain, Pilintor resisted occupation longer than other parts of the empire, but in the end they were overrun by alliance of fringe powers who among themselves divided the empire.

For nearly a millennium control of Pilintor shifted between bickering powers who were united in only one thing -- their hatred for the First State and the faith in Just God. But in spite of all the hardships Pilintores clang to their faith and memory of a state that worked to promote good wherever possible. Finally 270 years ago Pilintor overthrew its occupiers and established itself as an independent state. At first it was no different from fringe powers (whose name comes from the times of the First State, when they were only petty kingdoms on its fringes refusing to acknowledge empire's sovereignty), but pretty soon Pilintores discovered that imperial protocols and organization existed for a reason. They did their best to recreate the structure of the old empire and in the span of a few decades they developed so rapidly that fringe power started seeing their "little brother" as a threat to take father's (empire's) place. In order to prevent this the fringe had been resorting to various methods, from reoccupation, to installing vile dictators, to close cooperation, but whatever they'd do, Pilintor's resourcefulness lead it to reemerge as wealthiest and most cultured of states. At such time fringe powers would show their ugly head again and fringe wars became almost a routine.

Eventually Pilintores got bored of the viscous circle. On 250th anniversary of independence and 50th anniversary of the republic they decided that for once they should fight a war on their own terms. They renamed the state to Echran State of Pilindor knowing full well it would provoke yet another fringe war. This time they didn't even care to listen to diplomacy and the explanations, they simply dug their heels and waited for the attack. In a sense this war was more one-sided than any before, but despite all its might, it became clearer than ever that defending the arcology is one thing and expanding its territory another. Instead it simply served as a showcase to teach the fringes a lesion in power. Satisfied with enemy body-count if not with lack of conquest, Pilintor consented to accept recognition of the new name without any further concessions.

What was not known at the time was that scientists of Pilintor were close to discovery of faster than light travel. Together with the announcement of space flight, Pilintor initiated the settlement program which would be open to all the peoples of Sol system, fringe, overseas and off earthers, under close scrutiny of Pilintor state of course. This of course lead to swelling of Pilintor's population and even faster economical and scientific development. But Pilintor knows that they cannot keep the space travel a secret for too long. Sooner or later the colonists will turn on Pilintores just like the fringe turned on the empire. To prevent this Pilintores have just initiated construction of arcologies similar to their own on strategic locations in the galactic sector that when the time comes can be defended. They have tasked their most competent civil servants with their construction and Imperial Armed Forces with maintaining the order. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to escort colony ship Vasil II to Sevaston star system, secure the location of the new arcology and make sure that all colonies have what they need. Remember, radio messages take four years to arrive to Earth, so one needs to remind the colonists that they are not alone out there.


Troops at your disposal include:

Stellar Infantry, mockingly called space marines (mockingly because Pilindor has no access to Earth seas), are heavily armed and armored elite troops of Pilintor Security Service at the colonies. While nominally a police (because colonies are supposed to have no external threats and therefore no need for army), they use gear similar to the one used by Pilintor Defense Forces in last fringe war.

Echran Palace Guards, paladins for short, are elite among the elite. They are selected for their devotion to the Just God and are tasked with maintaining both spirituality and morale of their fellow troops. In addition they are able to manifest the will of the Just One. While unable to harm their foes with it directly (as far as it's know so far) their blessings (mockingly called spells) can have tangible effects in either protecting from harm or repairing damage done to either ships or men.

Aethernaut Navigators (a.k.a. wizards) are gifted people people who are able to plug themselves in Aethernet computers and use them to project their conscience into physical space. As such they are able to call various Aether subroutines that are able to wreck havoc among the enemies should such methods become necessary. Because such attacks tend to be imprecise they are usually used as a weapon of last resort. And since they are never physically present in combat, the enemy can only temporary disable their hologramic projections. Needless to say they are awarded incredible respect among their fellow troops.

Reconnaissance Knights are the cavalry of 22nd century. While next to useless on Earth, where simply there is no space for them to be effective, in colonies they're able to scour vast tracts of land. Expensive (compared to Stellar Infantry) and vulnerable, they are saved for precision strikes for which space marines are simply too slow.


Other oddities, elven spacepriests, kraken slayers, robo-miners and such will be available upon request.

Sounds like a cool concept. I'll go ahead and give my critiquing notes first ...

'viscous' should be 'vicious'

The setup makes me think a little of Israel; a tiny, modern state surrounded by giant enemies, with a name and government practically designed to provoke attack. The current setup is a little more feudalistic than I'd expect for the year (although I may just be reading it wrong), so I expect that the fall of Echran was a Big Thing, basically a massive civil war, and philosophy and politics took a few steps backwards (maybe a bounce against a big next step? Marx was right, but people fight against the transition to socialism and shifted towards fascism as a defense? Or perhaps the empowerment of the individual through modern technologies (such as instant communication, personal manufacturing and so on) took the state-threatening behaviors we see in Libya and Iran and brought them to Echran, where they were used by fringe groups, so the state had to chomp down on personal liberties and self-destructed. As a reader, I'm curious, and would like to know more about that transition period.

You say Pilintor is well-protected, and somewhere on Earth. I also wonder where it actually is. I imagine it may be in Alaska (and Echran is echoes of the American empire), Siberia or Ural (and Echran is echoes of a new Russian empire), or the Himalayas (and Echran is echoes of a Chinese empire). In each of these situations, Pilintor can also claim an additional cultural heritage of its own (Palin, snow, and Tibet, respectively).

You're a little vague on the tech level, something else I'd be curious on. Pilintor is approaching FTL, which is HUGE. But I don't know if it's a single unusual breakthrough and the rest of the tech is not at the 'believed to be impossible' level, or if all of the tech should be equally amazing. Pilintor is a few decades ahead of everyone else (which may be a little or a huge gap, depending on which scale of technological development you believe in), so I also don't know if 'everyone else' should be 'half a step below amazing' or something closer to what modern people can understand.

And to the crux of the matter; it seems like you throw it all away with your premise. You're on a spaceship, traveling at c, through lightyears of empty space. The bad guys don't have the technology to keep up with you. There's no sign of anyone else out there to give you trouble. So what's the conflict?

Go ahead, that's why I posted it.



Eh, despite that you folks on the net forget, I am not a native speaker of English. Every once in a while some mistake passes through my spell checker.



Israel is one of two inspirations for Pilintor, but fringe powers are not Arabs. Also unlike Israel, Pilintor has no right to launch a preemptive strike. Their religion dictates that they must wait for the enemy to fire the first shot.

But I intentionally use a fictional geography of Earth. I have no desire to attract the wrong kind of attention.



You're not reading it wrong. It is supposed to be WarCraft in space.



It was and I plan to run a game at that time as well. That is why some details are vague. I want to leave some space for the medieval game.

But you can think of fall of Rome or Byzantium.



I still haven't worked out the details, but fringe powers eventually united and actually succeeded in destroying the empire. They razed Sevaston (imperial capital) to the ground, and divided pretty much the rest among themselves. Province of Echran was annexed by yet unnamed fringe power, but it will be the main rival of Pilintor.



Actually, advances in technology created a golden age (or rather a series of such), but every time Pilintor would pull ahead fringe powers would attack and pull it back. Eventually Pilintor broke their grip and now they no longer have the power to do so.



Actually Pilintor is the first Earth nation (and so far the only one) that discovered FTL travel and now they have 20-30 years headstart, kind of like Spanish did in America. Others will have to work their behinds off just to catch up once they discover FTL flight.



A mix. FTL is an amazing breakthrough, but the rest of Pilintor technology are jetbikes, power armors, arcology domes and such, but no terraforming. FTL is huge, but wasn't entirely unbelievable. Think electricity when it appeared.

I did my best to imagine Pilintor tech as 50-70 years in the future, while the rest will be about 15-25 years behind them. Let me give you an example.


Harley-Davidson jetbikes vs. Pilintor's own hoversteeds. The difference between the two being that even though they're manufactured on fringe, one gets more bang (speed) for buck with Harley, simply because (in addition to aesthetics) hoversteeds come with built-in AI so that in addition to listening to music one can chat with the steed and have an additional pair of eyes on the lookout.



I did my best to explain. Is now difference clearer?



You missed one important part.


Perhaps it would have been clearer if I called it colonization program.



Basically this means that there are two types of settlements outside Solar system: bigger arcologies dominated by Pilintor natives and smaller colonies, taxed and overseen by Pilintores, but with little to no Pilintor settlers. Therefore there are two scenarios Pilintores are expecting.

1. Colonies will rebel against arcologies, pursue independence or joining Earth nations once they discover FTL
   and
   
2. Pilintor will construct enough spaceships outside of Sol system and therefore out of view of fringe powers and other Earth nations that they will be able to "liberate" other provinces of Echran empire and with them most likely the rest of Solar system.

Now there's the main conflict. How to delay scenario (1) for scenario (2) to take place? How much can they oppress the colonists without incurring the wrath of God of Justice? Remember, their ideology dictates that they may not even launch a preemptive strike. And are the planets as empty as they think? Alien artifacts, space monsters, natives (Did I mention dwarves who don't need space suits and space elves?) and whatnot... More than enough for dungeon crawl in space.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:15, Fri 08 July 2011.

It sounds kind of like you're pitching modern technology with a future twist. So it's still people as we know them, doing people activities, but now with flashier toys? Are you embracing any particular futurism trends, like cyberpunk or transhumanism?

The settlement program is on other planets, correct? But still, all fringe elements are limited by c, whereas Pilintores are not. Plus, the tech factor is HUGE.

Your included two conflicts didn't come through, I just see two plus signs.

I posted my last message prematurely, so I had to edit it quite a bit. I did add some significant parts, so you may want to read it once more.


Now let me answer the questions you have so far.


I am. In a sense between 21st and 22nd century humanity has been developing steadily, there were no major events that have significantly altered technology and/or social structure. That is up until discovery of FTL flight. Then it revolutionized the world in a similar manner as discovery of America or industrial revolution did.



And divine miracles, Aethernet spells, cybernetic implants and genetic engineering.



Ever since I left my office I was struggling with finding the right word. Best I could come up with is: Theopunk. First and foremost what a just god would approve of? What would it tolerate and what wouldn't? What would such god forgive a person or nation? What answers would a benevolent church offer to actually contribute to solving moral dilemmas (for a change)?

Until two days ago I had no idea what transhuman means, but none the less I've created a character type of Aethernauts, who deal heavily with this issue. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but the idea is that as their Avatar is getting and getting stronger (as they level up), their physical bodies are getting and getting weaker. What exactly happens after Apotheosis, that I haven't decided yet. Do they keep haunting the Aethernet as poltergeists? (Anyone for a game ghostbusters in space!?) Can such poltergeist be tied to a mainframe or possess a living human? Do they enter symbiosis with willing hosts? What of this would church and state allow? Do they lock them in cybertombs, only allowing those who are licensed to ask their advice? Or do they return as saints (martyrs, who gave their lives for betterment of mankind) to pious individuals?

Cyber implants and plastic surgery don't directly lead to sin or harm the soul like in Fading Suns, but they do lead to Temptation. Yes, I need Temptation game mechanic quick.

Genetic engineering and gene therapy are cardinal sins under most circumstances, but occasionally, when no other satisfying treatment treatment exists they're permissible. Church and the state constantly work to resolve gray areas which of course must exist.

The church was adamant, however, as parents of a child which has been modified face expulsion from Pilintor if they consented to gene therapy and doctors who performed it life in prison, the child itself cannot be harmed. It is to be carefully educated to "understand" perils of breeding artificial strains of human beings. As such they're not even expected to be celibate (although many do as a sign of piety), but are expected (and monitored) to avoid mating with people known to have similar or compatible modified or exceptional genes. As such church is confident that couple of generations of interbreeding with "wild" humans would forever erase any trace of tempering.

In theory that is. In practice a big row was raised when Pilintor's national basketball team won fifth world championship in a row! Nothing was proven, but fringes were red with anger.



Beyond Sol system.



Light speed?



As I said, I clicked "Post Message" by mistake. Read the message now, it has one whole new paragraph and some minor corrections.

Yes, sorry.



Alright. I lean towards hard sci-fi and transhumanism. IMO, expecting technological development at that rate is unrealistic, but that's okay, since you're writing fiction. Discovery of FTL is a HUGE issue though, so you're going to need to discuss how people discovered it, how it works, and what the limitations are. Sword of Stars made FTL a major plot point, with every faction using a completely different method. But the method of discovery is still pretty important, since this is, if you'll pardon the joke, lightyears beyond where technology is likely to be in 100 years (barring the singularity), muchless a basically modern setting. You can say it's a fluke discovery, an alien artifact or whatever (or cloak it in mystery and make its discovery a plotline of its own).

And still, restrictions should be considered. How big is it? How much energy does it require? How fast does it accelerate? Even with FTL, how fast are we moving between locations? Can we transmit information FTL as well, or will data be transmitted by courier? Do we have sensors that can detect FTL ships, and transmit that data back in time? (Remember radar and every method of communication is limited by c. That works both ways; your radar stations can't detect attackers before they arrive, and your navigation computers can't tell what's ahead of you until it's behind you.)

FTL also brings up other issues, like relativity, safety, time-travel. I assume you're going to sweep that under the rug and operate on a basically newtonian universe, but it obviously won't be hard sci-fi :)



Can you expand on miracles and Aethernet spells?



That's a cool idea. I've never heard of Theopunk. I assume this is a very active, objectively provable God. So how do people deal with issues like human suffering?



Interesting. Are these changes linear, or do you see diminishing returns?



What do you mean 'temptation'?



Do I assume then that genetic engineering permits more awesome troopers, and is used exclusively by the bad guys? Are there any mechanical effects for committing sins beyond social stigma?



Yes. So fringe guys are getting to xenoplanets how? Hitching a ride with Pilinth? Why would Pilinth launch their own enemies into space? Are all of the space bad guys ex-Pilinthians who are now rebels?

I do see the two conflicts now, but they still seem a little weak. We should be presented with the underdogs. Right now, the Pilinthians control lightspeed, so they control everything past the solar system. On Earth, they're outnumbered, but they still have a huge tech advantage, and are confident enough in their situation that they're actually inviting attack. There is indeed conflict, putting down pesky rebels and perhaps taking the aggressive on Earth, but things are under the control.

Since you've described it being like Warcraft, I assume the goal is combat simulation, so you need a reason for some combat. You also want to be careful about copying starcraft (which is unfortunate, owing as starcraft is hugely generic).

So, to toss out some ideas ...

You have the Fringe, who, ironically, is everything EXCEPT the fringe :P But they want Pilinth technology. They outnumber, but Pilinth holds a superior position. So their dominant tool may instead be espionage. Play them like the USSR; a TON of stuff, but trashier. They have lower respect for human life, so they don't mind just throwing guys at it. They also have a superior espionage program.

Pilinth proper has some issues though. The capital is working engaging in some fuzzy dealings, has been extorting resources from the colonies, has been asking questions they have no business asking about. Worse, the priest-king (whatever you want to call him) has not been performing the appropriate traditions. What people haven't realized yet is he's been somehow turned to the other side/extorted/whatever and is actually working for the Fringe. He's been releasing data to the Fringe, including tech and strategic data. However, the government is so strict, there's no space for questioning.

In the colonies, things are also getting tough. Some people see the writing on the wall and want to break off. Others are loyal to the state, even if they have questions about their leader.

Finally, you have the aliens, and whatever hostile artifacts may still be bopping around.

I must admit that for me personally it's more about aesthetics and atmosphere of the game than believability of the science. This is why this game is technically SF fantasy, closer to say Dune, than straight-forward science fiction.



I do have answers to most of questions you asked, but I've omitted answering them until now because posts were too big already.

I will answer the main points now.


First thing you need to know about FTL in this game is that it's less a flight, but more a teleportation. In other words it's instantaneous. That's not to say it's easy or cheap. Quite the opposite. Here are main requirements for it.

1. Ship in a vacuum. That is to say no faster-than-light emails. No launch from atmosphere.
   
2. At least one competent Aethernet Navigator inside. Navigators are specially gifted people who exhibit a certain degree of talent for astral projection. It is not yet fully understood why, but it appears that psychic phenomenons are tied to Aether. With use of special computers Navigators are able to achieve control of Aether on big enough scale.
   
3. Power. Lots of lots of power. I haven't decided what main power source of Pilintor is, whether it's solar, uranium or anti-matter, but Aetherships will use same power source. To understand the amount of energy needed for teleport one should consider this: amount of power needed for Jump between Earth and Sevaston of a medium sized ship, such as strike cruiser Yabuchil, is equal to gross energy consumption of Pilintor arcology for a week!
   
4. Time. While travel is instantaneous, preparations (of Aether around the ship) take time and lots of it. It takes a skillful Navigator at least several hours to arrange the Aether for jump.
   
5. During that time the ship needs to maintain synchronous orbit with celestial body that exerts the most pull. In other words, no evasive actions, no dogfight, nothing. Just stand there and wait.
   
6. That also means that a strong source of gravity is needed.

At the moment Pilintor has total of two FTL capable strike cruisers, one (one-use) capital colonization ship (that carries premade skeleton of arcology dome), one tiny mail ship per arcology, three capital supply ships and couple of emergency troop carriers. Yabuchil itself carries barely enough energy for about a dozen jumps.



Miracles are nothing special. In narrower terms it's spells paladins can cast. We all played WarCraft and Dungeons and Dragons. Various healing spells, aura that strengthens stellar infantry power armors and the like.

In broader terms anything that would otherwise be attributed to luck in this game would more likely be attributed to divine intervention. If you played FATE or similar games you'll be familiar with terms such as collaborative storytelling rather just roleplaying.


Aethernet routines are basically spells. They follow the lines of what various spellcasters in WarCraft can do. Examples include fireballs, teleports, lightning bolts, various summonings and the like. I wanted to put a credible modern/futuristic spin on concept of wizard.



That's not at all surprising since I've just coined the term.



Pretty much. Maybe not fully provable, but certainly more "felt" than in our world.



That's a good question and to a point I'm gonna let my players contribute significantly to the answer.

Pilintor itself is of course a utopia, so saying that there is pretty much no suffering within the arcology is not really a problem. How their just god would react to their oppression of others is something Pilintores will have to make a best guess and then live with the consequences.



I expect them to be linear, but in reality only playtesting can give us the final answer.



Here's the example.


Suppose I have a warrior who uses cybernetics to increase his strength, he is clearly opening himself to the sin of Wrath. Alternatively a singer who uses plastic surgery to increase size of her boobs and scientist who uses genetic engineering to boost his/her intelligence are opening themselves to sins of Lust and Pride respectively.

Now I don't want to make these necessarily sinful, but I do want to make such people more susceptible to sins, either making them less resistible to sins or having them suffer serious consequences once they do sin.



Actually this hasn't occurred to me. I was planning that Pilintor is the only one to have that advanced gene tech and the main issue was supposed to be if all the advantages they have would turn them into bad guys.

And while fringes are indeed adversaries, I never planned to portray them as bad guys, just someone with opposing interests. Are some of their methods uglier than Pilintores', sure, but I'm not into that kind of stereotyping.



Not yet, but I need them. Badly.



Number of reasons.

1. They need workforce
   
2. They believe fringes can do less damage separated from Earth
   
3. Pilints know that colonists are for now at their mercy.

For the time being colonists are working hard and paying some serious taxes. Can it be called oppression, maybe. That's the debate and these are moral dilemmas characters will have to face.



That didn't occur to me, but is definitely a possibility.

The bad guys I had in mind:

1. Rebellious colonies,
   
2. Greedy Pilintore governors,
   
3. Fringe infiltrators,
   
4. Colonists turned pirates or brigands,
   
5. Space monsters,
   
6. Alien remnants,
   
7. Mad AIs and poltergeists.

Isn't this enough for now?



Indeed. The main danger is that Pilintores themselves may turn into oppressors and that their god may decide to punish them. In a sense I want to give characters a honeymoon period when they can do pretty much as they like and then hit them on the head with consequences.



True. I believe that ATM there is enough potential for combat. The rest will come up once we get the game going.

Plan is to start with one paladin, one navigator, several infantrymen and couple of more unusual characters, such as space elves, robots or reconnaissance knights for instance.



StarCraft is pretty much rednecks in space (if you don't mind me saying) and I'll reserve that for the colonists. They don't have god in StarCraft and I believe that will be the difference enough.



All ideas you posted are noted and some of them closely match my own.

Now all I need are some players. Anyone interested?

ALright, I think you have a good idea of what you're missing. You've answered all of my questions, although I still feel my comments stand (especially regarding the strength of the conflict; I don't think you need to 'start it easy' by any means. It's not necessary, and it's weak story-telling. You need to hook them early.)

I am a little concerned about what exactly Pilinth is, in its character. Is it the golden-child? The chosen people? A corrupt artifact? The core of a new, slave-holding empire? Honest priests or arrogant inquisitors? I get the sense that my character SHOULD respect Pilinth, but whether Pilinth is actually behaving responsibly at this point isn't specified.

Once you settle that, I'd say you have a strong proposition sheet for the game. Then you just have to worry about everything that follows :) (starting with the dice mechanics!)

If you put it like that it makes a lot more sense. Believe me since Monday I've been struggling with reconciling this with atmosphere of isolation characteristic for early settling of American continent that I want to use in my game.



Personally I strive to ask those questions, not provide answers. Whenever I write a setting for a game I do my best to leave freedom to players to do with them what they like. Heroes or villains, Pilintores have potential for both (perhaps even at the same time). Lure of power and what one does with it is indeed intended to be one of the main themes of this game.



Actually dice mechanics (with exception of Temptation) are already there. I'll be using core of White Wolf's World of Darkness importing the cool stuff from Scion: Hero (I never bothered with later Scion games mainly because I'm not fond of the power level). And while paladins may have a boon or two themselves, most of epic attributes and boons will be distributed to equipment (gadgets), power-suits and cybernetic implants. If I do get a genetically modified character or two, I will allow them some enhancements, but they will be using more or less same game mechanics.

This should cover pretty much what I need for paladins and infantrymen. I'll combine systems from Mage games (they're almost identical anyway) with Wraith: the Oblivion (and Orpheus if I find time to finally read it) to create the feel I want for Aethernouts, whose bodies are dying while they live in Aether.

I was also planning to add space elves and dwarves, but fitting them to Pilintocentric setting that has formed in my head feels so far artificial, so I may shelve them for now.


Now, you wouldn't know any artist who would be interested to do a bit of concept art for a game that will most likely never be printed?

I'm not at all familiar with WoD mechanics, so I really can't help you with any of that.

I do know a concept artist. She does backgrounds and settings mostly. She's got something coming out with Rimward (an upcoming EP book) and two images for Technoir. However, she works solely ad-spec, and generally charges around $200-$400 :P

Although that seems somewhat outside my current budget, I'd still love to see some examples of her work.

---

In the meantime, I've set a game up. Anyone interested in Theopunk, feel free to drop me an RTJ at link below:

Stellar Infantry Chronicles (WoD/Scion)
link to another game

I don't know that she's been posting her illustrations anywhere (since so far they've all been sold). Once Technoir comes out though, I should be able to point some out.

Are you familiar with Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu?

Shadowrun uses the Essence mechanic, which basically represents how much tampering a human body can take before dying.  You start out with 6 Essence, it can never be increased, and implants permanently reduce that.  Even if the implant is taken out, you're stuck with an "Essence Hole".  Low Essence can mean a variety of things: it makes you harder to heal magically, it can impose a negative social modifier, and it harms your ability to use magic.

Call of Cthulhu uses Sanity Points: a number that represents how sane you are.  As you delve into the deeper mysteries of the Elder gods and experience eldrich horrors beyond imagining, you slowly start to lose Sanity points.  When you slip below a certain level, you become forever insane.

Additionally, there's Rippers, a Victorian horror setting for Savage Worlds.  It uses the Reason mechanic.  Basically, whenever you face something truly horrifying, you need to make a Spirit check, modified by your Reason.  The steampunk and horror implants in that setting reduce your Reason, although there's ways of getting it back up.  If you fail on that roll, you then get to roll randomly for an effect.

I personally like the last one best for your setting.  I think it could be adapted the most readily.  Call it whatever you like, and have the penalty for failure be whatever you think is appropriate.

Another option is something similar to FATE.  Just offer them XP to do whatever it is their character would be "tempted" to do, and/or make them pay XP to resist the temptation.  If there's one thing that gamers can't resist, it's XP (followed closely by loot).

Only slightly. I knew they had sanity mechanic, but not how it works.



I was looking for something like that. However, I'd leave a space for (1) a roll to decide how severe the effect of each individual tampering (Cyberpunk 2020 uses this approach) and (2) the result of too much tampering would be damnation rather than death. Keeping an religious overtone is paramount for this game.



I'd be curious to know how one regains Reason.



NWoD has the derangement mechanic and I'm thinking about adjusting it for the needs of my game. I was thinking something along the line of rolling the temptation rating and should it turns up more than one success, than one needs that many successes on humanity (or whatever) roll to resist humanity loss and/or gaining derangement.



I personally detest GM favoritism and as a point of principle award with experience attending only. Good roleplaying and anything else that requires my judgement is awarded only by doobies (Willpower/Fate/Inspiration whatever) and they cannot be converted to experience.

But using Willpower to resist the sin and sinning to recharge Willpower are both supported in nWoD and I'll be importing it to my game.

The CoC mechanic is pretty straightforward. CoC uses d100, and one attribute is Sanity, so it ranges from 0 to 100. When you encounter stuff, you roll a Willpower test; if you fail, you take the full Sanity damage (usually 1d10). If you succeed you take less (if any) damage. If you lose a certain amount of sanity in one go (around 3-8, depending on the character) you take a temporary dementia. If you lose it all, you're crazy and lost forever.

The easiest way is to buy it up as an Edge, but you can only take it so many times.  You also get a bonus as you advance.  However, implants take you back down real quick, as does Fright.

If you combine that with Essence, then each implant has a set value that subtracts from your Reason.  You also have an absolute limit on how many implants you can have.

In reply to katisara (msg #195):

The mechanic is a bit simplistic for WoD, but it gives me a picture.



An Edge???


A whole lot of what you wrote makes very little sense. I can try to guess what it means, but it's better if you'd just explain, considering I don't know the mechanics.

FATE Forum, little something I know Tyco will love and hopefully the rest of you will as well.

link to another game

Cheers, I'll check it out.  Unfortunately don't have as much time for rpol these days as I used to, so may not be able to to contribute much, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Just restarted medieval version of Stellar Infantry Chronicles. It uses a version of FATE and features Echran Empire before it fell. The link is below.

link to another game

So, as anyone who has been observing over in Community chat will know I once did a thought experiment which posted the question: What happens if upon Jesus ascension to heaven his surviving disciples become D&D style clerics?

The following points were debated and decided upon for these purposes:

1: There have been no clerics prior to this except perhaps a few isolated examples in previous chapters of the bible, but they were unable or unwilling to teach new clerics the way the decipels can.

2: God is Neutral/Good: the god spoken of by Jesus is the god who grants them their spells, not the 'wrath and vengeance' god of the old testament.

3: When/if the issue comes up some half a milenium later it is proved that God and Allah are not separate entities.

Understanding these three precepts, what do you think changes?

No more Christianity. It is replaced by Catholicism. A non-Biblical kind at that.

In reply to Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk (msg # 201):

A couple of questions first:

1) Are these clerics granted magic by God, or taught it by other clerics?

2) Will God revoke their magic powers while they are in a state of sin? (Once could go further into this "state of sin" business, but I'm trying to keep it simple for the moment)

Perhaps: or perhaps not: Catholicism as we would recognize it might never come into existence: the early Christians recognized no Pope, and had no formalized structure of command as far as we can tell.

Things might have stayed that way, and what is more certain is that the riots between the Peeterites and Paulites in Rome would not have come to pass, because the clerics among their numbers would have settled the point's of dogma leading to the riots with divination spells, meaning that the Roman Catholic Church, if it existed, would be much less rabid in it's outlook. You can't have fights over dogma when the higher levels of the church can simply call up Mettatron or Gabriel or Michael and ask for answers to the really thorny religious philosophy questions.



In reply to hakootoko (msg # 203):

Answer 1: Granted their power by God, but taught how to use it by more senior clerics.

Answer 2: Yes, he will, as per D&D style clerics. If you stray too far from God's path your spell casting power is Revoked and you must seek 'atonement' to get it back.

Heya, let's start a game on this premise. lol
D^D in Medieval Europe. :)

Your point about divination to determine correct doctrine is an interesting one. Well-meaning but mistaken heretical groups wouldn't have gotten started, if people could check their doctrine with an angel before teaching it to others.

Priests and bishops would have been regularly tested for being honest by the inclusion of a miracle as part of the mass, and if they failed at it, could face suspension. This wouldn't have had much effect on the worst times in the papacy (such as the Borgias), but perhaps it never would have gotten to that point if clerics were regularly tested.

Magic only being castable by clerics becomes proof of the existence of a higher power, because those who learn it and do not believe can never successfully cast it. It unclear to me offhand if this can be considered proof of God's existence, but there would be a large body of philosophical work on this proposition.

This was one of the conclusions we came to, that this would be done, would inevitably weed out the corrupt and the apostate, and that in turn would result in a truely infalible papacy, assuming one existed at all. We posited that it would though or something similar due to humans being by nature gregarious creatures that look to the 'best' in some sense or other among their number to be their leaders, and people who can heal the sick and raise the dead would definitely be seen by many as 'the best' among their number. (IE high level clerics.)

I suspect the hierarchy would still have formed. It was a necessary function of the church's expanding size, and its interaction with the political system.

I don't play D&D, but I see a few things coming up here.

1) This is objective proof (of a couple of things). It's proof that Christianity is right, so the Roman empire would have to either eliminate them with extreme prejudice, or embrace them as being the dominant religion. Given that historically they took this choice anyway, I don't know that would have a huge impact, but I imagine it would hurry things along.

2) It also contributes proof of dogma, and other facts. For instance, if Mary Magdalene was capable as a cleric, that would clearly have fallout. I'm wondering if a cleric decided to expel or off Mary, or send her on a distant mission, if that would eliminate his ability to be a cleric.

3) Divination would prevent a lot of the early schisms. There would be no question about whether Jesus was flesh or spirit. But it would also make the religion more rigid. There would be no question about whether Easter was in spring and involved rabbits and eggs.

4) I'm not clear about the other clerics coming up. Would we still have branches like Lutherism?

5) I'm also not clear on how sin controls things. For instance, would clerics be able to assume political positions, and make and enforce political decisions?

Good questions all: Let me answer them:

1: I would think that things would most likely go the same way as in history more or less, the Christians would be viewed as witches and sorcerers, and sent to the arena and so on, but in the end, what with being able to heal the sick and injured they would either rise in revolt and overthrow the empire or Constantine or somebody would convert and make it the state religion nd that would be that.

2: We posited based on what was seen in the dead sea scrolls that Mary Magdalena would be a cleric. As for what happens as a result, if one of the other disciples were to kill her he would be striped of his powers, most likely forever, but we could have an IRL Davinci Code situation where she ends up somewhere far from rome with a separate sect of the Church. Then again, she could, if some variants are believed, be Jesus successor as the head of the faith, as it seems now that it is posible that she was his wife, though that is a whole different discussion.

3: Correct, on all points.

4: I believe that this depends, Lutheranism and most other branches of the church were the result of corruption within the church: if this is prevented by access to divination and the revocation of priestly powers than I cant see them arising in the first place. However some schismatic type things might occur, such as a division between the Pentecostal types and the sects espousing silent worship. If God considers both forms of prayer valid ways to reach out and touch the divine within then both groups might exist, but there would be no animosity, since both sides have clerics and both side's clerics serve the same God.

5: This is very simple: are these decisions they make in line with the teaching of God as delivered by his only son Jesus Christ?
Yes? How is it an issue?
No? Why would a preist of the Almighty make such a decision knowing that it is against his Faith an Principles?

So... I have a question related to gaming and religion.

I'm considering buying this White Wolf book:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/...-Inferno?cPath=1_134

It looks awesome, but I'm afraid. I have this irrational (?) fear of demons... which may be weird, as I'm an atheist. Still, I keep wondering: what if what the religious people say is real and there are evil spirits around who want to do us harm? Wouldn't buying this kind of book be a little risky, then..?

Sorry if I have voiced similar questions in the past. I may have... which means I'm still working through this particular issue.

(Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but not illogical)

If there was anything in the book that could accidentally summon demons, the game designers wouldn't have survived to publish it. Surely it can't contain any real, dangerous information.

That said, I wouldn't buy it. I don't enjoy playing evil characters.

If I were to make any argument against an RPG book, a fear of summoning demons wouldn't be it.

I guess you're right... I hope so.

I try to be rational about these things, but I keep running into various warnings voiced by religious people... Recently, I've read an article published in a Catholic newspaper that basically said that you can become a target for demons, if you take - for example - part in Eastern relaxation sessions in a spa or visit some places (i.e. historical sites related to Nazism). It made me wonder: what if this stuff is real? If so, then buying a book about demons could make one a target for them, too...

Well then you wouldn't know it until you're dead, would you? I mean, imagine some atheist trips into lowering the defenses of his mind to a demon. What is that demon going to do?

He COULD take that atheist on a spin, corrupting his life with wicked drives and a series of unlikely but horrible events, causing that poor atheist a lifetime of suffering and suffering to all those around him until his eventual death

OR

He could play it cool, because the last thing we need is for some statisticians to notice that people who play Ouija boards and White Wolf generally have terrible lives and are constantly cursed, which of course would become strong evidence for the reality of Satan and God, ultimately driving people to cling a little closer to their faith. Or even just on the individual level, an atheist who even slightly suspects he is followed by a supernatural being will reconsider his position and perhaps even convert in order to set his mind at rest. Ultimately, the atheists soul is then stolen from Satan's grasp; a short-term gain for a long-term loss.

Instead, the rational decision is to leave the atheist alone; perhaps even give him minor blessings. Swarm him with demons, but leave him unharmed. Help him avoid any sort of calamity that may drive him to reconsider. Instead, present minor distractions and pleasures to keep him placated ... until the fateful day that he expires. Only then does Satan collect debts owed.

(I suppose the tl;dr of it is: if we accept demons are real and intelligent, with a long-game mentality, as an atheist you shouldn't worry that buying a game book will have any real influence on your vulnerability to supernatural powers.)

Okay, thanks. That does make sense.

Hmm. You know, I've actually been very lucky lately! Now I'm starting to worry...

If the demons are going to get to you through the book (in other words - those other folks are right) then there are a whole lot of MUCH worse things to worry about (like being eternally tortured in a literal conscious hell)

Yeah, I'd have to agree with Doulos on this one.  If the religious folks are right, then buying a book about demons is way down the list in terms of things you need to worry about!  The punishment for being a demon-summoner is the same as being a upright, nice-to-everybody non-believer: eternal torture in hell.

That said, if something makes you uncomfortable, it might be good to stay away from it, just for your own emotional/mental well-being.  Your fear might be irrational, but that doesn't mean it's not actually a fear.  And if you'll be losing sleep over it, or feeling guilty or whatever, that all might outweigh whatever enjoyment you might get out of the book.  The flip side of this is that perhaps this would be a way to overcome an irrational fear.

A third angle is that some people will likely judge you negatively for reading such a book.  If there are any people whose opinion you care about that fall into that category (religious grandparents, say), then again it might not be worth the hassle just to get some entertaining reading.  And again, the flipside might be that you could maybe use this to change some people's minds and get them to realize that reading fiction about demons doesn't make demons appear any more than reading fiction about jedis doesn't make jedis appear (though, I honestly wouldn't hold out a ton of hope on changing anyone's minds).

So basically, I don't think there's any reason to fear demons if you buy/read this book.  But there might be other reasons to avoid it.  Depends on how much entertainment it'll bring you, and how much stress you're willing to put up with to get it.

You're clumping every religious person in the world into one large, prejudicial generalization.  Maybe "religious zealots" or even "bible thumpers" would at least bring down the number somewhat.  :)

In reply to Heath (msg # 219):

I dunno, actually.  Even the most open-minded of religious people tend to think that what you believe is more important than what you read/buy, I'd say.  I think the idea that being an atheist leads to a worse afterlife is accepted by pretty much all major religious groups that I can think of, with exception of budhist perhaps (and even for them I'd say my statement above holds).  To a degree, the less zealous the religious person in question, the more true the statement would be (since they'd tend not to look as harshly on what books you read, and be more concerned about "more important" stuff).

To clarify, I didn't mean that statement as some dig at religious people, zealots or otherwise.  The sentence that followed it was specific to mainstream christian religions, granted, but they tend to be the ones that think demons exist.

To put it another way, are there some religions where, if they're correct, reading this book is really more of a problem than being an atheist?

I admit that I try not to buy into the mindset that being an atheist makes me a damned person... Somehow, my vision of Christian God is that he's a loving begin. So, I kind of count of being spared from hell based on my good deeds and intentions... if it turns out that hell is real, that is.

And to clarify something: I'm not scared of the punishment for reading that WW book. I don't think that it's that important bad deed... I'm more scared of demons being drawn to me and causing harm to me.

Has anyone here seen Exorcism of Emily Rose? That movie totally scared me. I do hope things like that aren't real...

This is not the LDS belief, nor is it likely to be the religious dogma of most of Christianity, at the deepest level.

For example, why do Christians believe Satan became the devil?  It is not because he is the most evil per se.  It is because he had all the promises, exchanged promises with God, and then reneged on them, spat upon them, and became an angel that was cast down.  He could never become the "devil" if (1) He did not believe and revile God, and (2) he did not rise to a high enough level of prominence to be able to be cast down so low.

So it's kind of the theory of the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  Atheists cannot be cast down as far because they never rose up enough, but they also cannot share in salvation.  So if anything, they are middle of the road as to their eternal judgment.

In reply to Heath (msg # 222):

I thought the LDS view was that pretty much no one goes to "hell", but that there are three layers of "heaven", and that atheists end up in the bottom one (don't rise high in your way of putting it).  I thought to get above the lowest level of heaven you had to do stuff which you'd only do if you believed in God (e.g., make convenants with him, worship him, take part in sacraments, etc.)

...Doing a bit of wiki-reading, it sounds like atheists end up in either the middle or the bottom heaven, depending on if they accept christianity in the afterlife.  But I think that still seems to imply that being an atheist leads to a worse afterlife than you would otherwise have according to LDS beliefs.  A good, honest, upright atheist who accepts christianity in the afterlife gets to level 2 of heaven.  A good, honest, upright christian gets to go to level 1 (or at least has the chance to).

I see that you're saying that to get the totally worst afterlife of all you need to believe in God and then actively decide you don't like Him, but that's sort of tangential to what I'm saying.  Regardless of whether being an atheist leads to the absolute worst afterlife or not (according or LDS beliefs), it does lead to a worse one than an otherwise-equal believer would get (according to LDS beliefs).

To turn it around a bit, if what I'm saying doesn't accurately reflect LDS beliefs, that seems to imply that faith has no bearing on one's afterlife (according to LDS beliefs).  Or, put another way, if one is no worse off in the afterlife for being an atheist, then it follows that one is no better off for being a devout follower of the religion either.  It would seem odd that religion would send people out as missionaries to win converts if they didn't feel like changing peoples beliefs was important, no?  I feel like perhaps you think I'm making a stronger claim than I'm actually intending here.  I really don't feel like what I'm saying should be all that controversial.

To bring it back to the original point, are you saying that the LDS belief would be that reading this roleplaying book about demons would have more impact on a person's afterlife than will whether they believe in God or not?  Would you rather one of your kids stopped being a Mormon, or read this book?

[by the by, I'm going away on holiday soon, and probably won't get a chance to post for two weeks or so, so if I don't reply to any messages for a long time, that's why]

Let me clarify.  There are three "levels" of heaven in the LDS belief, and one "hell" that is outside of those (called "outer darkness").  The three kingdoms are all kingdoms of "glory" but differ in their brightness, as typically exemplified by the brightness of the stars compared to the moon, and the moon as to the sun.  This comparison comes from 1 Corinthians 15:41:

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory."

Only those who rejected God's plan and did not get bodies are relegated to outer darkness, including the devil and his ilk.  Everyone else got physical bodies and will therefore get resurrected.  Which of the three kingdoms you go to depends on which type of resurrected body you get at the time of judgment.

The three levels of salvation include the Telestial, Terrestrial and Celestial.  The Telestial is the lowest (the stars), and it is often compared to earth life.  Some say even the Telestial Kingdom is so wonderful that people would commit suicide to go there.  It is the level where people go who do not accept Jesus as their savior (in this life or in the time leading up to Judgment).

The terrestrial includes those who accepted Jesus and his atoning sacrifice but either were sinners or did not partake of the saving ordinances (baptism by someone with authority, etc.).

The celestial kingdom is for those who accepted Jesus, partook of the saving ordinances, and lived faithful and good lives.  The highest level of the celestial kingdom is for those who also partook of eternal marriage and who can become eternal creators like God.

_____

So, yes, I guess "hell" was being used generically above, though outer darkness would be considered hell in LDS thought.  But anyone of us here on earth are essentially guaranteed not to wind up there.

There is also a place called "spirit prison" and "paradise."  These are the two places you go after you die.  Those who were baptized and accepted Jesus on earth go to paradise, and the rest go to spirit prison, which is similar to the "hell" sometimes thought of (though without Satan or fire).  Those in paradise go down and minister to those in spirit prison, and if they accept the saving ordinances and Jesus in spirit prison, they can go to paradise and fix any problems and repent before Judgment.

So it is much more complicated than saying "heaven" or "hell" in the LDS viewpoint.

I wasn't commenting on the original point.  It's not the reading of a book but the impact the book has on a person, that person's beliefs, and that person's behaviors.  Obviously, some books can have such an effect just by being read (such as the psychological effects of pornography), but this would need to be examined on a case by case basis.

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Here's an extra-paranoid question for everyone: what if demons do exist, but they don't behave strictly to Christian ideas about demons? Meaning, they exist, but aren't what Christianity believes them to be? Maybe I've watched too much of X-Files, but what if Christian God doesn't exist, but there are some malevolent spiritual entities..?

As I said, I know it's uber-paranoid, but that's the problem with being an agnostic: everything is, in theory, possible...

If you're reading a book about Christian demons and Christianity is wrong, then the real demons aren't going to take the book seriously, either.

Well, as far as I know, Inferno is about demons in general, not only Christian demons... Demons in NWoD aren't tied specifically to Christianity, although they fit the general mold of "evil spirits from a dark place".

That's a lot of what ifs based on air.  Not sure why it would bother you at all since it has as much chance as an invisible internet god that infests your mind every time you go online.

If it bothers you don't get the book, but if you're going to play a what-if game on no evidence then you should probably curl up in the corner and be terrified of anything you or anyone else can possibly imagine.

On a related note, the Pope says of atheists "God forgives those who follow their conscience."

http://the-view-from-rome.blog...he-pope/?ref=HRER3-1

That's a bit how my life looks like right now, admittedly... :(



Yay! :)

I agree.  But the fact remains that ultimately the necessary ordinances for salvation still remain necessary (baptism, etc.), even if they are accepted after the forgiveness takes place.

Forgiveness does not equate to rising to one's spiritual potential. You can be forgiven for getting bad grades, and even make up classes, but that don't mean yer gettin into Harvard.  :)

I have to admit that one of the great things about the LDS faith is that it's no lose.  I can ignore the existence of it my entire life, but at the end if it turns out to be the winner then I get to reap the benefits anyways ;)

Sort of like having the lottery numbers be drawn for my by default at the end even if I never bother to play the game!

Actually, that would just put you in the Terrestrial Kingdom, not the highest kingdom, assuming you lived a good life.

It's more along the lines of you get out of it what you put into it.  If you want to go to Harvard, there's a lot of work that goes into getting there, but there's a lot of reward.  If you're happy working at McDonald's, then you can be happy doing that work.  So your statement is not exactly correct unless you're the kind of guy who doesn't care to meet his potential and is happy with something less than the best.

Sure, if you believe it's true then that makes sense.

From a risk assessment standpoint, it would make more sense to try and follow at least one of the religions that threatens hell, because the consequences for being wrong there are MUCH higher.

The consequences for being wrong about the LDS faith?  A slightly less fancy eternity.  I could totally live with that.  Burning in conscuious torment for all of eternity on the other hand...

My guess is that strictly from an endgame perspective, becoming a follow of Islam is maybe the smartest.  At least in Christianity you have some growing beliefs of annihilationism, or universalism in there.  I'm not aware of those beliefs being a part of the Islamic faith, though I really could be wrong (in fact I suspect I probably am).

I know Buddhism has a sort of hell for the very worst, though the chance of the regular folk going there are pretty slim, and even then you'll eventually find your way out of there, though it could take a REAL long time.

Purely from a logical and endgame perspective, the LDS faith is way down the list.  Of course there is the whole 'But it's true!' part, but I'm not really dealing with that perspective here :)

From a logic perspective, the LDS church is the only one that makes absolute sense to me.  I find that those who don't share that view often simply don't know enough about it.  It is one of the most logical religions out there.

But the danger with what you post is not a risk assessment but a denial of truth assessment.  If I told you I'd rather believe that the body is not made up of atoms but of midi-chlorians that could give us the chance to use the Force if we only believe, that is much more desireable than believing there is no such thing as the Force and that atoms are merely atoms.  But which is true?

Now, you may say we know that atoms exist and not midichlorians, so it is a different analysis.  But do we?  Have you ever seen an "atom" except in scientific literature professing them to exist?  Is your belief in atoms merely because it makes sense that they do exist and that what the scientists are telling you is right?  And can you "disprove" the existence of midichlorians?

Religion is kind of like this.  We rely on what scholars say, on the Holy Ghost (or Nirvana or what have you) to confirm truths, and on our own sense of what seems right and wrong.  Faith is an action of questioning and confirming, not of blindly believing.  It is simply done on a spiritual plane that our science is not yet capable of proving or disproving.

The approach I am suggesting is that if I don't know if any religion is true (since they all rely on unprovable beliefs) then my decision could be based on following the religion in which I can avoid the worst amount of punishment if I am wrong - so potentially Islam.

Of course, this is all just theoretical game theory in a sense, since people follow religions because they believe them to be true, and not based on logical game theory reasons...haha
This message was last edited by the player at 03:47, Sat 14 Sept 2013.

Yeah, that's what I was getting at.  The risk/benefit analysis is destroyed by the issue of faith and the fact that following one of them doesn't make it any less true or false.  Therefore, it provides no benefit.  Even if you chose correctly, the lack of "faith" in that religion will most likely make the former adherence to its principles fairly worthless.