>I don't think you're coming at this from the right direction. A small
>cult can have plenty of depth, it's down to the capabilities of the
>person playing the character. (If anyone remembers Pete Nash's baboon,
>they'll know that). Even the most well written, detailed etc cult can be
>drab if the person playing a PC of that cult is a poor roleplayer).
Yes, but that is besides the point. My selection of Hell's Angels as a comparison was not random. I would expect that you could construct a tender love story or uplifting story of victory over opression in a RPG about an outlaw motorcycle gang. But it would not be exactly typical of a band of drug dealing, violent, racist, sexist thugs. And it would probably not be terribly welcomed by players who signed up to play an outlaw motorcycle gang.
The setting of a game restricts what can be reasonably done in it. The narrower the setting, the more restrictive it is. When you are playing a a member of a group that tries to spend it's time fighting chaos, looking for chaos to fight, getting drunk, looking for a fight, looking for a place to get drunk, trying to pick up women, fighting women's relatives, recovering from being drunk and beaten up, plotting to kidnap women from another tribe, etc, it can be a lot of fun. But there are lots of classes of scenarios that are just not going to work. Of course, the above scenarios are not going to work very well in a voiria game.
But Brian was not talking about this. He was complaining (sort of) about the cult of Storm Bull not being considered "worthy" of having the "depth" of Orlanth or the other cultural gods. Well, that is of course true. When you have hundreds of thousands (or milions) of worshipers in a region you get a rather different dynamic than a small band of young male (or female) warriors. So the motivations of the players are likely to be much more diverse.
Orlanth has lots of subcults and hero cults. But that is because it is such a large and diverse group. Lots of people worship Orlanth and associated cults, with many different reasons and motivations. Even in a clan, you have a few hundred people who are fulfiling different roles. Assuming the GM is going a decent job this will result in a much more varied set of challenges and scenarios that a warband has.
But sometimes going off and kiling things is a lot more fun.
Kevin
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