Banestorm

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Make sure you and your players are on the same page regarding religion. I've had a campaign collapse into recriminations over it. In my opinion, the use of real-world religions is one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it can pose problems.

The core of it is that my regular troupe have always lived in secular society, don't know much about Christianity or Islam and are accustomed to treating both with contempt. Most fantasy settings have a dozen made-up religions competing in a way that leads to none of them having much temporal power. So it was a very unpleasant shock to some people when an Inquisitor burned a PC alive for blasphemy and the crowd cheered and clapped. I'm sure it would be possible to play an Yrth campaign with religion in the background, but at that point I have to ask why play Yrth instead of some other setting.

They probably haven't played enough Warhammer (of either timeline).

That being said, I've played my share of non-irreligious characters, including a Shintou priest (as well as I could, anyway), a WH40K voidsman, a shapeshifting swashbuckly executioner-priest of a complex sacrificial cult(ure), and probably some fantasy characters I can't remember.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

They probably haven't played enough Warhammer (of either timeline).

Or Ars Magica.

I use real world religions in my Ärth setting, which is an alternate history Earth, rather than transplanted-humans like in Yrth, and it is important to get across to players that religion is very serious business indeed.

Also that it can produce actual physical results, for a subset of the most devout believers. As one of several available sets of supernatural powers. Divine magic is probably the rarest kind of magic on Ärth, though, so it's not necessarily bad roleplaying if it takes a party of non-Abrahamic PCs by surprise.

One thing I deliberately built into Ärth, from day one, was alternatives to the Abrahamic religions. You can't play an atheist, because that'd be extremely anachronistic and is indicative that you'd really be much happier playing in a campaign set in D&D Land (so that you don't have to get into the memes) rather than Ärth, but due to the time frame I've opted for, late 10th century, there's plenty of Norse and Slavic paganism, and I've also made the setting alternate history in order to have Keltic paganism (i.e. druidic religion). So that for players who are deeply unhappy with the shape that the Abrahamic religions take, and some or all of their memetic content, there's a viable alternative.

That's not really doable on Yrth, though, because of the time frame. By 2012 AD, the Christians and Moslems ought to have finished their missionary/crusader work, at least on the main continent(s), so that there's no non-Abrahamic memeplexes left.

Another thing to remember is that neither Islam nor Christianity are truly monolithic and all-alike-everywhere religions. They are based on scripture, but that scripture is open to some degree of interpretation. For Christianity, e.g., the mood and feel of an area may depend a lot on what the local Bishop is like, especially if Papal authority is weak. It is in 10th century Ärth, but I don't know what the case it in 21st century Yrth. Our timeline suggests that the Vatican is likely to gain power over the entire Catholic Church after some time.

Episcopal authority aside, both Islam and Christianity are a lot more prone to mob rage than pagan religions, because souls are at stake. That's something pagans need to know, if they want to be able to travel safely in Christian or Moslem lands.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Or Ars Magica.

I don't think Ars Magica is that rough. Once you've seen the Inquisitor's apprentices walk everywhere with a HMG on a red wagon, that's when you no longer have the urge to treat the clergy dismissively.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I don't think Ars Magica is that rough. Once you've seen the Inquisitor's apprentices walk everywhere with a HMG on a red wagon, that's when you no longer have the urge to treat the clergy dismissively.

You may be right. But Ars Magica is still very much of the "take religion seriously" school of thought, rather than the D&D Land school of thought.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by patchwork

Make sure you and your players are on the same page regarding religion. I've had a campaign collapse into recriminations over it. In my opinion, the use of real-world religions is one of the most interesting parts of the game, but it can pose problems.

The core of it is that my regular troupe have always lived in secular society, don't know much about Christianity or Islam and are accustomed to treating both with contempt. Most fantasy settings have a dozen made-up religions competing in a way that leads to none of them having much temporal power. So it was a very unpleasant shock to some people when an Inquisitor burned a PC alive for blasphemy and the crowd cheered and clapped. I'm sure it would be possible to play an Yrth campaign with religion in the background, but at that point I have to ask why play Yrth instead of some other setting.

Your first paragraph is flawed as advice only by limiting itself to "regarding religion." Any number of issues can be hot buttons: slavery, economic philosophy, how laws are made, who rules, the roles of the sexes, racism, punishment of criminals. . . . Just generally, if you're going to run a campaign set in anything like the historical past, you need to get players to buy in before you create the first character. I don't know what the situation is with your players, but my sense is that a lot of people are ignorant of history in general.

At the character creation session for Worminghall, I told my players, "You've probably heard the Society for Creative Anachronism saying about 'the Middle Ages as they ought to have been.' This campaign's not set in that Middle Ages. It's set partly in the Middle Ages as they were, and partly in the Middle Ages as they imagined themselves."

One of my current players has told me about a past campaign that she was in where another player insisted on playing a homosexual man who was completely out—in Medieval Europe!—and didn't think it was acceptable for her character to face even social discrimination, let alone arrest and execution. I'm not sure if this was just "I'm a PC so I can do anything," expectation that the campaign world would be the modern world with cosmetic changes, or actual historical naïveté.

My players, fortunately, don't seem to have that level of ahistorical expectations.

Bill Stoddard

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Your first paragraph is flawed as advice only by limiting itself to "regarding religion." Any number of issues can be hot buttons: slavery, economic philosophy, how laws are made, who rules, the roles of the sexes, racism, punishment of criminals. . . . Just generally, if you're going to run a campaign set in anything like the historical past, you need to get players to buy in before you create the first character. I don't know what the situation is with your players, but my sense is that a lot of people are ignorant of history in general.

At the character creation session for Worminghall, I told my players, "You've probably heard the Society for Creative Anachronism saying about 'the Middle Ages as they ought to have been.' This campaign's not set in that Middle Ages. It's set partly in the Middle Ages as they were, and partly in the Middle Ages as they imagined themselves."

One of my current players has told me about a past campaign that she was in where another player insisted on playing a homosexual man who was completely out—in Medieval Europe!—and didn't think it was acceptable for her character to face even social discrimination, let alone arrest and execution. I'm not sure if this was just "I'm a PC so I can do anything," expectation that the campaign world would be the modern world with cosmetic changes, or actual historical naïveté.

My players, fortunately, don't seem to have that level of ahistorical expectations.

Bill Stoddard

QFT!






The GM should, IMO, give fair warning about things like playing an 'openly homosexual man' in a historical game set in Medieval Europe. If the player ignores the warning, too bad.

This applies to fantasy settings, too, of course. Let's say that I decide to run a Middle Earth game. Somebody wants to play an orc. I point out that orcs are 'bad guys' and that most Men, Elves, Hobbits, and Dwarves are likely going to mistrust, fear, or even attack his PC pretty much on sight. Now he's been given fair warning. He really can't complain if the first session involves Hobbits chasing the orc PC around with pitchforks. If I had just let the player walk into a set-up by not telling him how the world worked, that wouldn't be fair.

Objecting to the in-world presence of slavery, ‘feudalism’, prejudice against orcs/homosexuals/left-handed people/wizards, or whatever other features don’t accord with the players’ real world ideals is, IMO, lame sauce. I’m not talking about playing an unusual PC. I’m talking about rejecting the basic features of the setting. To me, whining about the importance of Islam and Christianity on Yrth is like whining about the lack of high tech gear and infrastructure in the setting. That’s how the world works. A player accepts the world when he joins the game. How his PC reacts to things is something that should be played out. But the PC, if a native, should make sense for the setting (Unusual backgrounds subject to GM approval, of course!).

YMMV

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Or Ars Magica.

I use real world religions in my Ärth setting, which is an alternate history Earth, rather than transplanted-humans like in Yrth, and it is important to get across to players that religion is very serious business indeed.

Also that it can produce actual physical results, for a subset of the most devout believers. As one of several available sets of supernatural powers. Divine magic is probably the rarest kind of magic on Ärth, though, so it's not necessarily bad roleplaying if it takes a party of non-Abrahamic PCs by surprise.

One thing I deliberately built into Ärth, from day one, was alternatives to the Abrahamic religions. You can't play an atheist, because that'd be extremely anachronistic and is indicative that you'd really be much happier playing in a campaign set in D&D Land (so that you don't have to get into the memes) rather than Ärth, but due to the time frame I've opted for, late 10th century, there's plenty of Norse and Slavic paganism, and I've also made the setting alternate history in order to have Keltic paganism (i.e. druidic religion). So that for players who are deeply unhappy with the shape that the Abrahamic religions take, and some or all of their memetic content, there's a viable alternative.

That's not really doable on Yrth, though, because of the time frame. By 2012 AD, the Christians and Moslems ought to have finished their missionary/crusader work, at least on the main continent(s), so that there's no non-Abrahamic memeplexes left.

Another thing to remember is that neither Islam nor Christianity are truly monolithic and all-alike-everywhere religions. They are based on scripture, but that scripture is open to some degree of interpretation. For Christianity, e.g., the mood and feel of an area may depend a lot on what the local Bishop is like, especially if Papal authority is weak. It is in 10th century Ärth, but I don't know what the case it in 21st century Yrth. Our timeline suggests that the Vatican is likely to gain power over the entire Catholic Church after some time.

Episcopal authority aside, both Islam and Christianity are a lot more prone to mob rage than pagan religions, because souls are at stake. That's something pagans need to know, if they want to be able to travel safely in Christian or Moslem lands.

You seem to assume that the triumph of Christianity and Islam over pagan beleifs on Yrth (and in the real world, maybe?) is inevitable.

Why?

It's true that these two religions have been runaway sucessess in demographic and geopolitical terms, but there are plenty of people in the real world (and a a fair number on Yrth, according to the books) who are not Muslims or Christians (or Jews). 'Pagan' beliefs are alive and well in much of our real world.

Or is there something in particular about Norse and Slavic native beliefs that you think makes adherents of such traditions especially vulnerable to conversion?


The will of God? I don't mean to sound blasphemous. I'm not advancing that possibility as a joke.

[vicky_molokh]

In fact, you don't even need to be Low-Tech to be a polytheist. Look at Japan. 150M people, of them roughly 300M believers (half of those are polytheists, the other half is complicated).

That is, of course, a joking exaggeration. Still, the point about a strong polytheistic tradition alive and well in 2012 still stands.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

In fact, you don't even need to be Low-Tech to be a polytheist. Look at Japan. 150M people, of them roughly 300M believers (half of those are polytheists, the other half is complicated).

That is, of course, a joking exaggeration. Still, the point about a strong polytheistic tradition alive and well in 2012 still stands.

You can be a Shintoist and a Buddhist at the same time.

Yeah, I don't see any strong connection between tech level and religion.

But I don't know that Peter was arguing anything based on technology or scientific developments. He was writing about Yrth, after all.


He mentioned crusader and missionary efforts.

EDIT -My guess is that he means that the largest human populations were Christian and Muslim. Thus, one might expect somebody to have conquered and/or converted the Nomad Lands and Sahud.

In my Yrth, I take the hints of syncretism in the Nomad Lands and run with those. I also include heretics driven from Christian realms, sort of like the followers of Arius among the Goths.

There would be Jesuits at work in Sahud, most likely. It just fits.

I like to keep the 'Olympian' mystery religions/cults in Megalos and Cardiel as secret societies.

I mostly ignore the 'Wiccan' type stuff. I suppose it could have been brought from 20th Century Earth, but I don't really see it meshing so well.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

You can be a Shintoist and a Buddhist at the same time.

Yeah, that's what I meant.
I heard that there are also cases of integrating Christian belief into the mix. Of course, I doubt most European denominations would approve/recognise such mixing, but that's besides the fact.

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Yeah, I don't see any strong connection between tech level and religion.

Yeah, but I've seen some people* with a firm belief that there is a rigid correlation, so I preferred to spell that out. IMHO this is not necessarily the case (as shown by Japan).

* == Smart, educated people. I just happen to disagree.