From: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com (RuneQuest Rules Digest) To: runequest-rules-digest@lists.imagiconline.com Subject: RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #174 Reply-To: runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Sender: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Errors-To: owner-runequest-rules@lists.imagiconline.com Precedence: bulk RuneQuest Rules Digest Tuesday, December 21 1999 Volume 02 : Number 174 RuneQuest is a trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. All Rights Reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS [RQ-RULES] Re: Christianity in RQ [RQ-RULES] Re: God and the [devil(s)] in RQ RE: [RQ-RULES] Re: Christianity in RQ RULES OF THE ROAD 1. Do not include large sections of a message in your reply. Especially not to add "Yeah, I agree" or "No, I disagree." Or be excoriated. If someone writes something good and you want to say "good show" please do. But don't include the whole message you praise. 2. Use an appropriate Subject line. 3. Learn the art of paraphrasing: Don't just quote and comment on a point-by-point basis. 4. No anonymous posting, please. Don't say something unless you're ready to stand by it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 17:15:56 -0000 From: Sergio Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: Christianity in RQ Simon: >To my mind, choosing a single thread of religious theology and declaring >it to be absolute exclusive truth is closing off other 'lines of exploration', >not providing any. If you pre-decide what is true and what is not, this limits >the scope for making genuinely meaningfull discoveries and presenting >novell revelations in the game. I see no reason why a game can't have just >as much freedom of interpretation and moral complexity as the real world. I have nothing against this. I only think that there's a misunderstanding here. Let me try to explain better what I mean: There are two levels of discurse here (maybe more, but I'll restrict my analysis to two levels): In game discurse about religion; Meta-game discourse, or in other words, the designer discourse. What you write above is writen at the meta-level. You, as a game world designer, favor a multi-thread approach to religion. But, what happens when the In-game discourse contradicts the meta-game discourse (or vice-versa)? Let me provide two examples: Religions like the Roman, Greek, Hindu, etc. are "open". They are polytheistic, and accept that there are other religions or divine entities outside of their native pantheons. If we design a game tehology that's similar to these, and assume an open meta-game stance on religion, the two discourses are coherent. Now, monotheistic religions are based on the belief that there's only one God. There's only one center of "divine activity", and everything else relating to religion comes (directely or not) from that center. This means that this in-game discourse is closed. Now, if the game world designer thinks that in his game world there should be multiple sources of divinity, and that there's no A religion, the discourses don't match. The conclusion is that the in-game discourse of that religion is wrong. Let's go back to Christianism. This religion is based on the notion that there's only one God. (With three manifestations, Father, Son, and Holy Gost, which may raise the question whether it's a single god or three, but I think this is not the place to discuss this issue.) More than that, there's only one way to have faith in that God: the Christian way. Other beliefs are not acceptable. A game designer that wants to create a game based on Christianism must decide: either the meta-game discourse is consistent with the in-game discourse, or not. Either there's only a God - the Christian God - or not. What I ask is: what's the point in designing a game based on Christianism, if an essencial aspect of that game is that this religion is utterly wrong? (Remember that Michael didn't say that he wanted a game about RW faiths. He didn't say that his game was about Christianism, Islamism, Budism, Judaism, etc.) Next we can go deeper: there's not one Christianism. We have Catholicism, Anglicanism, Luteranism, etc. And within each of those variations, we have basically two sub-sets: the common people faith, and the scholars faith. If we think about Catholicism, we have the Theologists, and the faith of the common people, and even those have diverse expressions. Who's right: the Theologist (which, for instance, has many doubts on the sainthood of an holy person or miracle like the countless manifestations of the Virgin Mary that the Church didn't turn into canonical manifestations of the divine), or the layman (with its popular saints)? Once more, we have two different in-game discourses. The game designer must chose which is true. >I don't see the connection. pascal's bet was that thepotential benefits if >you believe in god, and god does exist, are infinite. Whereas the potential >risks of not believeing in god are infinitely bad, if god does exist. >therefore any rational being should believe in god. What I am suggestign >is that whatever the _reason_ for having faith, that faith is not usualy >absolute, and can be improved by appropriate religious behaviour. Well, after stating the bet the way you resumed, Pascal also presents some suggestions for the person that doubts the existance of God. These revolve around adopting a behavior in accordance to the religious percepts. He suggests that, when in doubt, it's better to conform to the commandements issued by God. The un-believer should do this, both because he ensures that, in the case that God exists he would not sin, and would protect himself from the wrath of God; and because maybe the practice of the religious commandments could lead the unfaithful to open his senses and get faith. In other words, one can behave in accordance to the percepts of the religion even if one doesn't have faith. But that behavior only gains true meaning if one has faith. On the other hand, there's a lot of people that do have faith (which means that do believe in God), and don't act according to the appropriate religious behavior. In fact, they may even try to act against the religious commandments, like in the case of the Satanistic sects. We cannot say that these sects don't believe in God. On the contrary, their only raison d'etre is that their members are faithful. (On the other hand, we may consider that the true Satanist must know extensively the religious behavior, if only to do just the oposite.) My conclusion is that faith can exist even if one has only a superficial knowledge of what the religion considers a proper behavior, and that a proper behavior does not result necessarily in faith. >You seem to be suggesting that there are no degrees of faith, that it is >like an on-off switch, you are either 100% faithfull, or completely >faithless. That seems at odds with christian tradition. AFAIK it is not at odds with the Christian tradition. In this tradition we have: The (true) faithful: those that believe in (the Christian) God, and act according to his percepts; The sinners: those that believe in God but don't act according to his percepts; The infidels: those that believe in gods that try to displace the Christian God; The pahens: those that believe in gods that don't try to displace the Christian God (since the Christian God is allien to their beliefs); The agnostic: those that don't kow whether God exists or not; The atheists: those that say that God does not exist. These are qualitative distinctions, not matters of degree. >If there is no benefit from performing pilgrimages and pennances, then why >perform them at all? As far as I can tell, religiously devout people do these >things because they believe that they strengthen their faith and bring them >closer to god. This is a different issue. The problem is that according to Christianism man is tainted by the original sin. Religious behavior is not directed at acquiring or enlarging faith. It is directed to Salvation by overcoming the taint of the original sin. Salvation requires faith (a mind state), and strict obeservation of the religious commandments (a behavior). >it seems to me that the skills game mechanics can be used for this. The >character's Faith ability could be used as a chance of resisting pagan magic, >etc. I would use skills to represent the knowledge of the percepts of the religion, and how to attempt to achieve Sainthood and Salvation. But not only this. I would also use peersonality traits (like in Pendragon). These play a major part in Christian religious matters. On what concerns faith, I would probably drop the notion of doubt (agnosticism and atheism). And I would decide whether the in-game Christian discourse (that there's only one God) conforms with my meta-discourse. If I decided that those two discourses were consistent (Christianism is true), the other religions would be manifestations of the Devil. Sergio *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 16:49:09 EST From: SPerrin@aol.com Subject: [RQ-RULES] Re: God and the [devil(s)] in RQ In a message dated 12/17/1999 9:25:06 AM Pacific Standard Time, sermasalmeida@mail.telepac.pt writes a very good dissertation on the difference between what the world believes and what the gamemaster knows to be true. One comment prompts the following response: << On what concerns faith, I would probably drop the notion of doubt (agnosticism and atheism). And I would decide whether the in-game Christian discourse (that there's only one God) conforms with my meta-discourse. If I decided that those two discourses were consistent (Christianism is true), the other religions would be manifestations of the Devil. >> For my monotheistic campaign, which was not Christianity per se but based on the similarities between it, Islam, and Judaism, I mandated one god and no Devil. Instead, the evil religions were worshippers of essentially extradimensional Cthulhoid "gods." Think of the One God as the defender of his Creation against the encroaching influences of otherworldly expansionists. I suppose the Warhammer Fantasy universe is like this, though mine does not have the inevitablity of the victory of Chaos. Someday I'll have to do more with this. Steve Perrin, world-juggler *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 13:54:15 -0500 (EST) From: simon_hibbs@lycosmail.com Subject: RE: [RQ-RULES] Re: Christianity in RQ Matthew Barron : >Sorcery could be a case by case basis - in fact sorcerors and proto >scientists may be indistinguishable - they both research, achieve >effects that surprise and amaze and are generally reclusive and >mysterious. If you ran your campaign in the late Middle Ages/Early >Renaisance, your character could be a sorceror apprentice to >Leonardo DaVinci - "what's the difference between taxidermy and >necromancy?" to the authorities not much. In a world where magic works, science is magic. Science is the study of the world as it is, without preconceptions or prejudice. However most theories of magic presuppose a natural moral order to the universe, and so the moraly neutral approach of the scientific method is at odds with it. e.g. The study of Gematria is founded on the assumption that god created the universe and exerts influence through moral authority, which can be used by humans through the study and manipulation of 'the word of god'. Also, the magical theories of Le Abbe de Villars, who believed that Adam, the perfect man, exerted authority over god's creation by virtue of containing within himself all the elements of creation in perfect ballance. Thus a human could assume these powers through a process of self purification and ballance. Summoning and raising demons was beleieved to be done by Solomon through invoking divine authority, etc. Of course, missuse of this authority would be blasphemous. >Saintly powers are best handled like HQ I think - there's no reason to >make your average Christian possess an evenly remote possibility of >being immune to magic. After all that's why they obsessively burned >witches - they were scared witless of their magic. I agree, I donth see where this christian defence against amgic comes from. I believe that christians could obtain protection from malingn magic through prayer and so forth, but I don't see that as fundamentaly different, from a rules point of view, from a pagan using shamanic or sorcerous magic for protective purposes, although you might use different game mechanics. >..you roll 50% and so you succeed - God grants you protection and >your resistence to the palsy is doubled. Your Devotion score now >drops to 50%. Why on earth should successfuly invoking divine protection make you _less_ devoted to god? If anything I'd have thought it would work the other way around. That's why i think it's more like a skill. The more successfuly your faith works for you, the more faithfull you become. >Religious Orders - loads of religious orders were founded in the >period who conflicted constantly, even ones which ostensibly held the >same saints as patrons..... >Different orders could have different ideas about magic, what's >acceptable and what's not. This kind of situation is presented very well in the monotheistic west of Glorantha, where rival churches of Malkionism differ about fundamental points of doctrine while worshiping the same god, using the same basic tests and revering mainly the same saints. >3. Who is God?: This is the question which I think the GM has to >answer first - who is God? What's he like? What's he into? >Is God really there? If he isn't, then what's happening with Christians? >Are they just a bunch of deluded obsessives who are really anti >magic? Even talking about god as a person with opinions and thoughts in the same way that you and I have opinions and are reasoning beings would have many theologians throughout history to have apoplectic fits. The idea that for god to exist he has to be just this bloke who happens to be super powerfull is against the main stream of theology for the last few thousand years. It's only recently with the predominance of relatively new and unsophisticated christian sects that simplistic ideas like this have gained intelectual currency. >If God is there is he the God of the Jews(Qaballa?), the Christians >(Catholics? Prostestants? Anabaptists? Quakers? Gnostics? Druse? etc. >) is he the God of Islam (Sunni? Sufi? other?). I honestly don't see why he can't be all of them. You need to look at these religions and consider what aspects of their doctrine are about human life and concerns and what aspects are about core theology and spirituality. The divisions between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church were not about the nature of god, but about the nature and role of the church and forms of worship. They did very much believe in the same god. Hstoricaly the god of islam is very definitely the same god as that of the jews and christians, it's just that each of these groups ascribe different attributes and prefferences to that god. >Does he endorse or despise murder? magic? mercy to enemies? love? >holy war? saints? None of the religions you describe substantialy disagree about any of these attributes of god, except in some details that are realy down to linguistic variations in their sacred texts, rather than real substantial differences. If they do agree on these points, then why do we have to arbitrarily choose one of them to be right and the others wrong? What does it achieve? >I really feel that if you want to run a Dark/Middle Ages with a genuine >magical dimension these are the sorts of questions you need to >answer. From your fundamental answers about who your >montheistic God is you get most of your other answers about what to >use what to disallow and what's going on. ok, suppoe that the jews are right about god and the moslems and christians are wrong. Given that moslems and christians have very much the same ideas about god as the jews on most points of substance, and thus a good moslem and a good christian are therefore actualy more pious than a bad jew in the vast majority of cases (I imagine many members of these religions would agree that this is broadly true?), what difference does deciding this in advance actualy make? ____________________________________________________ Simon Hibbs Technical Support M.S.I +44 171 898 2963 *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. ------------------------------ End of RuneQuest Rules Digest V2 #174 ************************************* *************************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list send mail to majordomo@lists.imagiconline.com with the line 'unsubscribe runequest-rules' as the body of the message. RuneQuest is a Trademark of Hasbro/Avalon Hill Games. With the exception of previously copyrighted material, unless specified otherwise all text in this digest is copyright by the author or authors, with rights granted to copy for personal use, to excerpt in reviews and replies, and to archive unchanged for electronic retrieval.