How do you GM Gods and the Afterlife

[mark hill]

Im wondering, with all you guys who have also GMed TFT for decades ..

Do you generally treat Cidri as a place where religions are more than just beliefs? Is there generally any supernatural events, spells or items which seem to have genuine 'holy' (or unholy) powers rather than man-made magic?

Do for instance, Cidri christians argue about where Palestine or Rome might really be .. on Cidri or an alternate earth? Do crosses really do anything to vampires (or only if the vampire themselves is a christian)? Does mighty Thor or Zeus actually cause thunderstorms? Is some religion or other obviously more 'real' than others? Are the various undead you might have in your games evidence for an afterlife? Are demons evidence, or just beings from a highly chaotic alternate 'normal' universe? Do any of you have active in-game cults devoted to the worship of the Mnoren? Does human sacrifice temporarily give wizards access to lots of Mana? Do any of you use some equivalent of D+D clerical healing magics (heresy! lol)?

are 'good' and 'evil' more than just humanocentric concepts?

or anything else you might rekon relevant to this topic

[larsdangly]

One of the interesting things about TFT is that its universe is full of supernatural things (magic, ghosts, demons), but it isn't clear whether religions are anything other than human institutions.

I like this as it jives with our experiences of religion in the real world - whether or not you believe in a god or gods, everyone recognizes that their existence and powers are subject to faith - Or, if you want to minimize the issue, matters of interpretation or opinion.

Concretely, I model all powers and effects of a religious nature as magic. Sure, the wizard's guild claims that they understand where magic comes from and how it works and who can do it and how you learn it. But that's just their brand; magical powers equivalent to known (and unknown) spells can be encountered in other ways. Specifically, I'll let characters with Priest talent learn relevant spells so long as they stick to the IQ and XP rules, without jumping through the hoops of wizardly apprenticeship and so forth. And, I use magic as a means of granting supernatural beings (demons, spirits, et.) significant powers. The powers manifest according to the rules for spell casting, but I use my own discretion in saying what kind of being can do what.

Another thing I've started doing recently is slowly and subtly introducing a caste of NPCs who are ... different. I construct them using the rules for Superheroes in the Companion. The underlying conceit is that they are something like demigods. I'm still feeling my way forward when it comes to a rigid interpretation of what they really are and where they come from. I find it more interesting to plop them in the game and see where it goes, as opposed to sorting it all out in advance, which feels to me a bitt like writing my own fan fiction of my own campaign

[mark hill]

Interesting! Im a big supers nerd but Ive never seen that game .. is the Companion one of the new TFT books?

I figure Mnoren (if they live thousands of years, which I presume they do) would be equivalent to demigods

[larsdangly]

I've also introduced into my campaign a version of the Gate spell that will connect different times. Perhaps Mnoren are a community that has mastered this art...

[mark hill]

whoh time travel .. bit of a can of worms to GM .. can the players contact their earlier selves?

[hcobb]

Pathfinder isn't time travel, but it does seem to imply that the character briefly becomes one with the universe.

[larsdangly]

Good question; it hasn't happened in play yet, so I haven't decided. I suspect if the players put themselves in the same time and place as themselves that I'll let them interact in some fashion or another. Or maybe the fates will keep them from coming in direct contact with each other, leaving the players to wonder what would happen if they had... I'm not sure. I'll ad lib it like I do everything else.

In any event, the way the 'time gates' work in my campaign is that, just like normal gates, they only function when the same creator makes both 'ends'. In the simplest case, the ends are co-located in space. Thus, in the absence of an existing time gate, you have to make one end, live out some period of your life, and then make the other end, and once the second end is made, it persists in the constantly advancing 'present', but connects back to the the first at the moment it was first created. And, the time you spend in the universe of the first end is time you are absent from the universe of the second end. Thus, if you make the first one on monday and the second on tuesday and then step through the second 'end' on wednesday, it will return you to monday. If you spend one day in the past and then step back in the first end, it will return you to thursday (the time you departed plus the time you were in the past). If you step back in the second end again, it will send you back to monday.

Using other people's gates, it stands to reason that the earliest time you could possibly visit is the time when the first wizard made the first end of the first ever time gate. So, when was that made? And by whom...?

[Chris Rice]

Back in the day, we used TFT as a straight mechanical replacement for D&D, so priests had powers of healing and turn Undead etc. Players who attained 20+ Attribute levels could become Demi Gods etc. At the same time, there were aspects of TFT I ignored, like the jobs table, proliferation of Gates, etc.

I like that TFT is a simple mechanical framework you can apply to anything. I once played "Ship of Souls" adventure, where the players went on a multidimensional quest with heroes from myth and legend like Cuchulain, Conan, Beowulf, etc. These sort of things are easy to do in TFT.

[Skarg]

I have run and played in a variety of TFT campaigns, and it varies by campaign. Actually, I guess in TFT (rather than TFT-similar GURPS campaigns, of which I've run and played even more), there has rarely been any religion, or at least no literal religion-as-magic-and/or-supermonsters.

There were certainly religions, and places full of very religious people, but no literal "religion gets you spells" nor "religion lets you re-roll results or get a DRM" nor "religion heals" nor "religion turns undead", except in Grail Quest.

And/or, if there were, players wouldn't know about it unless their PCs did, either as part of a background or in-play experience.


So to answer your questions:
_Do you generally treat Cidri as a place where religions are more than just beliefs?_
No, or maybe, but it's not obvious, your PC needs to learn about it to know, and probably not anything like D&D religion-as-magic etc.

Religions can be more than just beliefs without spells, miracles, their writings being literal, etc. Most actual religious texts are mystical, spiritual, and metaphorical, not literal superhero/magic physical power ups and monsters.


_Is there generally any supernatural events, spells or items which seem to have genuine 'holy' (or unholy) powers rather than man-made magic?_
There may be (very rarely to almost never in play) some that seem so, and people who believe they are, but no TFT PC in our games ever had any evidence they weren't magic, technology, Mnoren, etc.


_Do for instance, Cidri christians argue about where Palestine or Rome might really be .. on Cidri or an alternate earth?_
Probably. Never met one, but no doubt somewhere they're arguing. Not sure nor care why they care.

I bet there have been some people attempting quests and/or crusades to go there...


_Do crosses really do anything to vampires (or only if the vampire themselves is a christian)?_
Only if it's psychosomatic for the vampire.


_Does mighty Thor or Zeus actually cause thunderstorms?_
No. Well maybe - some people might take it as a portent, but not literally that there's a god dude doing it.


_Is some religion or other obviously more 'real' than others?_
Only when you're in such a culture, or looking at a cathedral and you'd better agree with the locals or get into there vibe, but no.


_Are the various undead you might have in your games evidence for an afterlife?_
Well, if/when the campaign has ghosts, vampires, revenants, then yes, but I've not in TFT campaigns had them talk about the afterlife outside those sorts of forms.


_Are demons evidence, or just beings from a highly chaotic alternate 'normal' universe?_
The TFT demons in our games were magical beings from another plane, not religious beings.


_Do any of you have active in-game cults devoted to the worship of the Mnoren?_
Yes, but they're not common nor conspicuous, and the players never interacted with them that I remember, or if it did it was very briefly.


_Does human sacrifice temporarily give wizards access to lots of Mana?_
No, or not because of some religious reasoning. Someone could probably research a spell that gives more than Drain ST if they kill the victim, but most of the civilized nations in my worlds would tend to look on that as anti-social.


_Do any of you use some equivalent of D+D clerical healing magics (heresy! lol)?_
No. Heresy indeed!


_are 'good' and 'evil' more than just humanocentric concepts?_
Good philosophical and/or psychological question, with some forms of yes which are philosophical and/or psychological, and some which are religious and different per religion.

The closest it comes to being a game stat is the few places in the rules where it mentions good or evil in a way that matters. In those cases, I look to clear common sense definitions rather than any religion's or game-mechanical definitions.

[JLV]

Originally Posted by mark hill

Im wondering, with all you guys who have also GMed TFT for decades ..

Do you generally treat Cidri as a place where religions are more than just beliefs? Is there generally any supernatural events, spells or items which seem to have genuine 'holy' (or unholy) powers rather than man-made magic?

Do for instance, Cidri christians argue about where Palestine or Rome might really be .. on Cidri or an alternate earth? Do crosses really do anything to vampires (or only if the vampire themselves is a christian)? Does mighty Thor or Zeus actually cause thunderstorms? Is some religion or other obviously more 'real' than others? Are the various undead you might have in your games evidence for an afterlife? Are demons evidence, or just beings from a highly chaotic alternate 'normal' universe? Do any of you have active in-game cults devoted to the worship of the Mnoren? Does human sacrifice temporarily give wizards access to lots of Mana? Do any of you use some equivalent of D+D clerical healing magics (heresy! lol)?

are 'good' and 'evil' more than just humanocentric concepts?

or anything else you might rekon relevant to this topic

I'm a big sucker for "organized" monotheistic religions, and really like what was done in the Banestorm splatbook for GURPS, for example. But I generally keep my religion "mysterious" in that something may happen that is an act of God and may even be publicized that way, but it might just be the character made a very lucky die roll at the right time (or the other guy a very UNlucky one!) So I like the formalism and the intrigue inherent in the structures, and there's always the faint possibility that miracles can happen, or that Saint's relics might actually have a benefit (another great example of an organized religion in a fantasy world is the British RPG Dragon Warriors, where they do indeed have some benefit...if they're real...), but you're never quite sure. And if we go with the Banestorm concept, every Christian knows Christ died in some city called "Jerusalem" or something like that, and it's probably just on that next continent over... Dragon Warriors handles the "origin story" for their religions with a similar savior figure in a similar kind of place (along with a similar figure for Mohammed too), but really completely different in its own way -- and that works too. ;-)

Mechanically, Dark City Games does a cool thing with Karma Points (and Steve Jackson was considering something similar for a while, but then apparently changed his mind on it), and I've often thought that a "Karma Point-like" system would be a very good basis for religion in TFT -- some slight advantage, but not very reliable or easy to come buy, and if the GM keeps the awards for it arbitrary and rare, it might be just enough to fuel some NPC religious fervor without breaking the game.

For me, the big issue with any kind of religion has always been "breaking the game." I don't want all-powerful beings intervening in the game world -- it removes any need for the characters to actually take actions ("Thor'll handle it, by gar!"), and winds up being the GM playing against himself too often to suit me. But that's just me.

Still, I know a lot of folks who don't want monotheistic religion in the classic sense (paganistic pantheons are apparently A-OK, though) in their games, so this is probably a touchy subject for some of them. I suspect however, that speaking historically, this effect at least partially arises from the "demonic panic" phase of RPGs here in America back in the 80's... Which is also when we lost a lot of the great "Frazetta-ish" art too, since it was considered too potentially controversial for publication anymore.