Faith, actual *faith* in RPGaming

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In general I would say that this is the type of thing that is a truly terrible idea to incorporate in a game unless all the players already share a faith, and maybe even then. As in, the type of thing that may cause the entire gaming group to self-destruct.

Yeah, I'm trying to imagine how this could possibly play out and not coming up with anything at all positive. It seems like the basic form is "You can play your characters with whatever faiths you like, I the GM may arbitrarily decide one or more of them is true (or outstandingly false) and secretly reward (or punish) the players who picked those." I can't see that ending well. What is even the goal here? Inducing every player to wonder every time something goes against his character if it is because the GM is cheating because I disagreed with his choice of faith?

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Well, there's a huge difference between some forms of magic existing in world and mysterious omni(potent/science/benevolent) entities.

For example, Cidri and Yrth. In both settings fatigue-spending book-learned wizards cast spells as skills that can objectively affect the world. Demons are proven to exist in both settings and hell is likely, but there is no proof in either that the Christian God nor any similar entity is real. Yet people there still have faith in a God or do not the same as here, where there is likewise no concrete proof.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Well, there's a huge difference between some forms of magic existing in world and mysterious omni(potent/science/benevolent) entities.

If there are ANY supernatural entities who will do you a solid if you suck up to them enough, that's more than enough basis for a religion. They don't have to be omnipotent, omniscient or benevolent. Just more powerful than you and aware of the things you do to try to win their favour

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

If there are ANY supernatural entities who will do you a solid if you suck up to them enough, that's more than enough basis for a religion. They don't have to be omnipotent, omniscient or benevolent. Just more powerful than you and aware of the things you do to try to win their favour

That depends on what you consider religion to be, what "supernatural" means, and a whole bunch of other questions. But in any case a cleric who just has that is a DF cleric.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Greetings, all!

Sure, lots of game settings have clerics and believers, but very often that is little more than just another dressing for the very concrete things which are fully supported by evidence. It doesn't take faith to rely on the favour of the Deity Of War when said god regularly casts pillars of flame at the request of its high priests.

Conversely, there are a few games which seem to make a point of ensuring that faith is supposed to be faith, and not something that is concrete/provable. They tend to have traits like "Faith. 10 points cost. Your character has a belief in a higher power. It's up to your GM to decide whether this ever makes any sort of difference in the game or not."

In a less mechanistic, more fluffy example, it has been recently pointed out to me that while Mage the Ascension is a game in which Ascension plays a major role, the books provide no (or very little) evidence that Ascension is in fact achievable. Which, IMHO, is totally compatible with the themes of MtA, since MtA is a game where belief/faith also plays a major role, and is in fact the source of immense power.

Finally, there's the case of characters who have faith in campaigns where the players have been clearly told that the setting does not include supernatural elements. In this case, it's purely a matter of roleplaying. I consider this case not as interesting as the previous two, because it doesn't require/encourage having faith, only roleplaying it.

What role does faith play in your games? What's your stance on these three, or perhaps on other related, cases of involving faith in the RPGaming process and why?

Thanks in advance to all who answer!

Ask yourself, what faith would be like when applied to a human and extend it. For interest, do you have faith that your daughter won't do drugs, or your love interest won't cheat behind your back?

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Ask yourself, what faith would be like when applied to a human and extend it. For interest, do you have faith that your daughter won't do drugs, or your love interest won't cheat behind your back?

I think partly the problem is the source of events. In the real world, these things are decided by factors you don't know and couldn't possibly ever determine. No matter how much you know about your daughter, you can't get inside her head to know all the thoughts that contribute to her decision. Maybe some part of the unknown factor in any event is a supernatural power that can like you if you flatter it enough.

RPGs though, you don't have that. This stuff is all determined either by the decisions of the GM or the roll of the dice. The only points of application of religious ritual are flattering the GM with worship (which will not be an issue of faith, he clearly does exist and control stuff, no leap of faith there, and it's usually pretty obvious when sucking up works too) or hoping supernatural powers alter the dice (which some gamers do have rituals for, but the fundamental assumption required to use dice to resolve stuff is the outcomes are more or less random, if you didn't mostly believe that, you wouldn't use them in an application where being random is the *point*)

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Ask yourself, what faith would be like when applied to a human and extend it. For interest, do you have faith that your daughter won't do drugs, or your love interest won't cheat behind your back?

Those are all possible events though. Nothing supernatural. It's more like asking do you have faith that your daughter won't sprout wings, or your love interest's human mask fall off to reveal an interdimensional alien.
I trust my love won't cheat on me, because I have evidence of her past behavior for the last 18 years.
And neither trust nor faith are hopes or guesses like me saying what color eyes you have.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Those are all possible events though. Nothing supernatural. It's more like asking do you have faith that your daughter won't sprout wings, or your love interest's human mask fall off to reveal an interdimensional alien.
I trust my love won't cheat on me, because I have evidence of her past behavior for the last 18 years.
And neither trust nor faith are hopes or guesses like me saying what color eyes you have.

We will accept your presumption of evidence though I suspect that you just have faith in reason and so are making excuses for yourself for those moments when in fact you are demanding investigatory discipline for yourself in the wrong context. Which is not really to the point.

But the point is that when the word was made it would have meant what it meant to the hearers which is roughly the same as I described even if only by analogy. It is not what I would mean by "faith" in the theological context because there was no theological context. Faith is something of a postpagan idea. Zeus did not demand faith of people as we know it. He demanded an homage that was subtly different from it which involved rote performance rather then faith. Many Theological concepts are metaphors because there was not a word for them when they arrived. Even the term "God" is an evolution of small letter "god" which was the only form they knew and meant roughly "big spirit" or possibly "authority"(if I recall a human chief could be called a "godi" but would surely know he was not Odin). The point is that the fact that God or a god(from the gaming pov) has supernatural power matters less then the fact that He said he did and that He would look after you if you trust Him-in the long run. The supernatural power is irrelevant. If I said I had supernatural power it would not matter that I don't. It would matter that I am either lying or fictionalizing for entertainment purposes or simply daft because I pretty obviously don't have supernatural power other then possession of human reason, and don't particularly want it. If you have faith in me you will accept that I am telling the truth that I do not have any power you would term supernatural, that is I am not a secret warlock. But it is the declaration that is important not the supernatural. Jesus' disciples saw him directly, so they did in fact have as much reason to have faith in Him as you do to trust your love interest. I have to deal with a combination of a large number of less blatant things. However Faith is not believing against reason, it is believing against the vageries of emotional turmoil. If you have faith in your love interest because you know her for 18 years or faith in reason because you find it dependable you do well.

Part of the problem is the fault of the rather simplistic theology that comes from Sunday School that seems to imply there is supposed to be something magic about believing hard enough even though that is really more attempted psionics then faith. an interpretation that is really an extrapolation of a few Bible verses despite the evidence of history not to mention Bible verses to the contrary(surely all the citizens of Constantinople in 1453 cannot have been culpably lacking in faith in that sense). Job had faith, even though he is a poster boy for the point that having faith might still be unpleasant for the faithful.

All this sounds overly preachy and threatens to bring the thread off course. However I had to spend a lot of time defining faith because it was a complicated concept and someone has to define it if it is to be roleplayed. From Gurps terms it should be played like any virtue a cleric might have. Give the cleric Divine Favor, and make him pay for it in Disciplines of Faith. Which is probably something like what would be done with a cleric anyway. Then force him to roleplay faith in the course of his adventures. Or treat the god as a Patron and have trust be one of the demands he makes. Or something of the kind.

[kirbwarrior]

I think the big, big issue here is; who has the faith? Characters have faith in all sorts of things (gods, people, gravity, etc.). Just like real people. Asking that the PCs all have faith is no different than asking that all PCs be emotion-filled teens or supers with secret identities or parents.

But the players themselves? That does go pretty hard against most rpgs. The rules exist for many reasons, but one is knowing what your character is capable of and to take as many unknown variables away. I can look at my character sheet in a system I know well and intuitively know what the character is capable of almost as well as I know what I am capable of. The almost is to point out that it will always be less than how well I know my own capabilities, and those surprise me enough.

Since I know GURPS the best, I'll talk mechanically there. Disads of faith already exist aplenty, and quirks cover near the rest. Faith is a personality trait. Either the GM and/or player can interweave it into the story. As for advantages, the best way to have a clear 'benefit' of faith without knowing what it is would be to take meta-traits or Patron, where the deity in question is clearly backing you up but you don't know how, and plays well into the whole 'I don't know if Deity is there, but i have faith'. But none of this will give the players any sense of faith. No more than a combat scene make them bleed. But they can get caught up in it, same as a great leader's speech or the attractive NPC who hits on them.

Lastly, do the players want to have faith? I think that's the most important question of them all. Because otherwise, all the faith-based mechanics will do is either create player/character knowledge differences or 'hidden mechanics' that's no better than relying on dice rolls.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I think the big, big issue here is; who has the faith? Characters have faith in all sorts of things (gods, people, gravity, etc.). Just like real people. Asking that the PCs all have faith is no different than asking that all PCs be emotion-filled teens or supers with secret identities or parents.

But the players themselves? That does go pretty hard against most rpgs. The rules exist for many reasons, but one is knowing what your character is capable of and to take as many unknown variables away. I can look at my character sheet in a system I know well and intuitively know what the character is capable of almost as well as I know what I am capable of. The almost is to point out that it will always be less than how well I know my own capabilities, and those surprise me enough.

Since I know GURPS the best, I'll talk mechanically there. Disads of faith already exist aplenty, and quirks cover near the rest. Faith is a personality trait. Either the GM and/or player can interweave it into the story. As for advantages, the best way to have a clear 'benefit' of faith without knowing what it is would be to take meta-traits or Patron, where the deity in question is clearly backing you up but you don't know how, and plays well into the whole 'I don't know if Deity is there, but i have faith'. But none of this will give the players any sense of faith. No more than a combat scene make them bleed. But they can get caught up in it, same as a great leader's speech or the attractive NPC who hits on them.

Lastly, do the players want to have faith? I think that's the most important question of them all. Because otherwise, all the faith-based mechanics will do is either create player/character knowledge differences or 'hidden mechanics' that's no better than relying on dice rolls.

Uh-huh. That is basically it. Roleplaying faith is like roleplaying any personal quality. It is an appropriate part of the CoH of a cleric or pallidin but it is not something that can be measured in a way that it will have a one-to-one effect on what a god does for a PC. It can be demanded by a god and reward by one but what it cannot be is measured.

Possibly the problem here is that we are talking about the difficulty that makes RPG magic so ludicrously scientific when literary magic demands nothing of the kind and when it does often has an uncanny bit that cannot be treated that way. RPGs are a mathematical device and this is not really a concept that can be quite rendered into formula.