Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix42
In my view, In Nomine is pretty inextricably tied up with b). It features a modernist, often even postmodern view of religious themes to the point where most of the fundamentals of Abrahamitic religion (Heaven=Good, Hell=evil, to name just one) are relativised. Of course anyone is free to take the modern element out of In Nomine, I'm not arguing with that - it's just that by doing so, you're stripping IN of what I think makes it interesting in the first place; which is why I posted the link, because I think it's something rather strange to do - it derelativises (if that's a word) a setting the very core of which would seem to be its use of relativity. What we seem to be debating now is whether the gender angle is one such example of derelativisation... right?
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A reasonable position, reasonably put. And I agree that part of what makes
In Nomine interesting, to me and to many others, is its "familiar, yet unfamiliar" setting ... not quite to the extreme of Jack Chalker's "Everything you think you know is wrong," but certainly in line with Shakespeare's "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I also agree that the "Fundamentalist Christian IN" you linked to is probably not one that I would play -- and I'm a Protestant Christian! That said, I don't think IN
demands the relativistic philosophy, even though it was obviously
conceived in it. Those who want to tie it to a particular faith or to a more solid good-evil conflict aren't having Hurting Wrong Fun unless they push it on someone who's clearly not interested. Which is true of any take on any RPG, of course.
"Sexing" angels could reflect the relativity level of a campaign, sure. But it's not a guaranteed litmus test. Some doctrines don't particularly care what sex angels appear to be; mixed male-female Choirs and Superiors under those circumstances could still be part of a campaign that was tied to a particular faith's world view of Heaven, Hell and the beings that inhabit both. Done in reverse, though, the test is more likely to be accurate: a campaign that restricts celestials to a single apparent sex
is likely to be "derelativizing" the setting by being tied to a particular religion's worldview ... or at least, representing an aspect of the players' real-life religious beliefs that they feel uncomfortable compromising on.
(And as a side note -- yes, I do consider "sexist" a more accurate adjective than "misogynist" for what was being described. Thanks for being accommodating; I hope I haven't been too rambling in return. )