Gods And Religion

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-06-16 23:22:58

As you all already know, in addition to nationalistic/tribal organizations, the next big thing for players to use as a means for grouping and rivalling in power is organized religion. Since the city discussion has spawned strong opinions on these things, it's time to bring this up.

The most important step in the process of defining organized religions in practice, and the only step that matters right now, is defining, in detail, what all gods have in common, regardless of rank and orientation. After we've completed this, the next step is applying these rules to each god individually and writing down the accurate agenda of each god, so that we'll make sure that what we came up with really is valid. Essentially, this means certain patterns that all gods live by, in technical, pragmatic terms.

Also, please try and avoid comments that essentially describe how all of this could be done by agreements between players, as it in no way contributes to solving these issues in the practical sense.

I came up with a few things:

- Gods gain power and influence from their worshippers, and they need this power in order to perform things that affect the mortal plane directly. This power is traditionally called Divine Points. It is very much undecided what kind of actions performed by mortals contribute to the gods' Divine Points, and how many Divine Points certain actions would drain, so I would be very interested in this item in particular. The practical way of doing this would be listing all actions that contribute Divine Points to gods and listing all actions the gods can perform by using Divine Points.

- All gods have special places of worship. The task here is listing what kinds of places of worship the gods might have, and what their effect would be.

- All gods have an organized group of followers. The more dedicated and fanatic a worshipper is to his god, the more the god will assist him, which, in practice leads to a better position in this organization, which leads to gaining both social influence and brute power. Sometimes one of these might be more visible than the other. Pleasing the gods is the key for rivalry in organized religions, but some room should be left for political scheming here as well.

- All gods have their own symbolism, slight manners, details, holy music and scriptures that all worshippers should somehow incorporate in their daily lives. This doesn't mean that the god a player worships should be instantly recognizable from what he looks like, but that at least there is the possibility of being holy 24/7.

- All religions have an opinion on other religions, and many religions have diplomatic conflicts among each other. Sometimes even wars. The task here is describing what different gods think of each other.

From: mandor
Date: 2002-06-18 21:11:15
In-Reply-To: 1656

This is a bloody huge design task.. but must be done for obvious reasons.

I will give this some thought during the summer days. I already have some suggestions brewing in the deeps of my mind.. actually I'v been thinking this same issue some time in the past, so I do have some old food-for-thought to chew on..

The first comment from me would be: Elder Gods. How about the elder gods? their real-self is not a part of the creation. And as earlier decided they can a) create more stuff into the creation, b) thus also giving them the power to create divine point or the equivalent out of thin air.

Is there any reason to change this?

Basicly to Elder gods it does not matter that much are they worshipped among mortals or not: if they would need/want worshippers they would just as well create an entire new species of their own just to worship them.

Previously there has also been discussions about the divine points flowing from down to up. Thus if you are a demigod of keen perception your divine points will flow to the lesser god of mental clarity from where they will again flow upward to Darshan, god of the mind. From there to some higher deity. Is this the way it should be? this would require us creating a tree-like structure of Gods, which is sort of what we did already when discussing the Gods influence over mortals, just go through those old posts and Y'll find a treelike structure there.

The bottom-level power still has to come from somewhere. And all power eventually flows to Namhas (all roads lead to Rome ;-))

It is listing this creating and mechanis of the bottom-level dinive points that I describe as a bloody huge design task. So better just stop pissing about and start with it then, right? =)

.M

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-06-27 23:59:04
In-Reply-To: 1656

All gods have special places of worship.

And related to that, one notion showed up. I wrote recently about cities, that they should have for example cemeteries. Only problem was, that there is no actual point to carry dead bodies there and bury them.

Unless.. if gods got divine points from bodies that are consecrated in certain chapel. So burying would be part of worshipping.

Maybe a matter of course, but in any case..

From: Zaxim
Date: 2002-06-26 20:38:45
In-Reply-To: 1680

Personally I just think we don't need gods at all. I think they unbalance the game and just are designers egomaniacle desire to be uh, what's the word? umm, oh yeah, "Gods"
Majik is more than just a game, but it still isn't a complete alternate reality that will suck our lifeforce away, (Maybe it is)

All I can say is maybe we should program a way so people don't have to use gods and are unaffected by them?

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-06-26 23:55:40
In-Reply-To: 1692

Who made you a designer anyway? I hope it wasn't me.

From: Zaxim
Date: 2002-07-01 21:49:37
In-Reply-To: 1694

No it wasn't you Yorka, :-)
It was Namhas
I don't like gods in a game but most people do, I'm merely voicing my opinion.

Oh dear I just realized that I'm almost as radical as Raeky, scratch my last post.

From: mandor
Date: 2002-06-28 09:13:29
In-Reply-To: 1699

I think this is a good idea. Many religions involve burial rites as an essential part of worship, heavily associated with the transferral to the afterlife.

Ever been to an orthodox church funeral? that might be a good example.

Even more so in ancient religions: like with the egyptians. Making mummies of corpses etc, it's all about worship and ensuring the dead bloke some easy living in the afterlife.

Certain Gods like Yorkaturr, for example, would most definitely want corpses buried in their name I'd guess.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-07-09 04:36:10
In-Reply-To: 1700

And in order to bring more interest to worshipping, yes we should have several ways to bury, some being entombed to ground, some to catacombs, some like the egyptians did.

One part of the burial ceremony, and part of the worshipping withal, is to give offertories. Egyptians as mentioned gave stuff to be carried to afterlife along the dead. In some religions this could be an essential part of the burial. And more you give, more power the god recieves, or more power the deaceased person gets when added to army of undead eg.

And not to forget robbing the tombs.. The particular god loses the points, and no one likes that..

Or if some undead person is too powerful to be easily killed by normal methods, just rob the source for his powers. Rest is silence.

All these things should be considered while making the 'deity system' in order to bring interest to worship.

From: ReSpawner
Date: 2002-07-08 13:33:58
In-Reply-To: 1700

But will there only be one god for ever religion?

atelst in real life some religions have many Gods... just look at the ancient egyptians... they had like 20 diffrent gods for diffrent things.

so i think it could be pretty cool that some religions have more then one God and some religion maybe have none?

Maybe in some religion the God dosent have to be a guy sitting on the clouds... some may worship the power of the nature or something...

just writing my thoughts...

From: ReSpawner
Date: 2002-07-07 18:14:04
In-Reply-To: 1701

I very much like the idea of God's and i hope we will be able to fix a good "God System".

(i just came home from a 3 weeks vacation so thats why i been so silent)

From: raeky
Date: 2002-07-26 03:19:52
In-Reply-To: 1701

I think Gods are neccessary in a game world simply for a managment basis. You need to have the ability to do Godly things in such a game world. But I think the Gods should be more far removed from the mortal plane as possible. And direct Godly interaction with mortals would be a VERY rare occasion. Godly wills/demands/wishes/actions should flow down the command chain, possibly being executed mainly by sages, or demigods. The idea of Gods in muds and other such multiplayer games to a player is the people who write the game, thus have the ability to do everything, and they feel that is unfair. I think through gameplay a player can assend to God status, thus be able to perform most God like abilities. :P

From: raeky
Date: 2002-07-26 03:20:13
In-Reply-To: 1701

ohh yea.. i resent that comment. :)

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-07-07 18:44:10
In-Reply-To: 1707

although Zaxim does raise a good point

people should be able to get by without the Gods, if they so desire (in-game atheists?). Just like they can survive without a team/group. but in the same way of thinking, having links to the gods and being in a god's favour would be beneficial in some ways, same as grouping together.

From: mandor
Date: 2002-07-07 19:59:07
In-Reply-To: 1708

world of majik differs from the world we live in by more ways than one, but the one I'm going to rant about here is: in Majik the elder gods created the entire existence. That act makes them so fundementally inboud to the fabric of everything that characters should be highly unlikely to reach their full potential and strength without the gods.

However I see no reason why a player shouldn't be able to do without the gods. He just won't do as well as he would with them. Perhaps the earliest stages of character development are easily done without any interaction towards the higher powers... but try to be the high priest of the unholy church without the consent of Yorkaturr and you will end up dead faster than you can say "look mom the 9 horsemen are coming.." =)

Some positions or acts of power simply require the gods, the rest doesn't. A character should be able to be an atheist if he so likes, he just misses the advantages gods and other higher powers can grant.

Years ago with Majik3 I was designing the psionicist guild, and in my designs I portrayed them as atheists. Beliving the powers of the mind over those of the gods. And at times I felt like they should have been designed into being more like satanists - worshipping themselves and their personal vigor over anything else. I got alot of inspiration from "the parth of power and the inner voice" in Mark Rein-Hagen's games. That's a nice philosophy to live by.

.M

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-07-08 13:48:05
In-Reply-To: 1714

Yes, some religions have multiple gods, or rather, some churches have multiple gods. It has been conceived that the evil gods, Mandor, Yorkaturr and Sinister, will at least have some sort of church coalition, though all of them can have more specialized branches as well.

From: namhas
Date: 2002-08-05 12:23:19
In-Reply-To: 1714

I think it has been agreed that there in Majik there is only single "pantheon", thus a single religion and the belief (the fact) that the Gods do exist and thus, there is no place for "atheists" -- those who don't believe in Gods. However, there's a place for people who have chosen to simply ignore the Gods.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-08-06 09:44:17
In-Reply-To: 1716

I have been playing around with the idea of divine points system in connection to the religion. Here are some related rantings:

Players body is a vessel for power (p) no matter he is dead or alive. So it is important to cater to the needs of the living and the dead, hence underlining the importance of graveyards, especially god/cult/guild etc. specific.

Everybody has same basic power level.

As characters are divine creatures, some of the power is in their use as a "mana" but part of the power is channeled to the god and upper religious hierarchy.

Points are pooled in a normal networkmarketing manner, where player first has half of his power in his own use and half goes to the god.

Alas, gods never return calls so our player also wants to gain some concrete benefits from the "order" and joins a church. From this point on, Church and god share their half of the player channeled power, Church also gives something for the character and gets the begging off from the gods face, so the trade off is just about ok.

There should be also more personal dimension and as one manages to recruit believers into a church he/she would get a small portion of that power, thus enabling increase in personal power for important members of the curch.

system that would facilitate these points, should be rather dynamic and as someone would hop to different church and maybe different god, the followers would come too, now, the followers would still have free choise if they want to do this or remain or return back to the original place blaablaabalaa...

Everybody should be able to start such a tree of dependencies and this system for religion could be used with other organization procedures like establishing village and town. Starter should be able to create wanted level and compensation schemes should it be money, power, food, time etc.

Every god could develop their own plans, how to reward etc, to make divine points determine very different religions. Or is it so that Namhas just makes one set of rules and others follow...

end

From: Zaxim
Date: 2002-07-28 10:31:57
In-Reply-To: 1746

Hehe, not sayign your messed up in the head. You just come up with creative ways to do stupid in game things

From: raeky
Date: 2002-07-28 17:09:06
In-Reply-To: 1756

I just brainstorm raw ideas into the forums without fear of people laughing or rejection. :)

I feel that is the best way to get new ideas. I could be wrong?

From: raeky
Date: 2002-08-07 00:20:08
In-Reply-To: 1774

yes i agree Atheists have no belif in any supernatural being of power, a god or anything. In Majik it would be possible to see gods and see there work directly with your eyes, so there is no way you could not have belif in the gods. You can follow or not follow them, but you can not not belive in them. :P

From: raeky
Date: 2002-08-07 00:26:49
In-Reply-To: 1776

I think graveyards should exist. There could be NPC chararcters that wonder arround citys and the surrounding areas, say pesents or what not, that have no real role in the game they just exist to populate the city to make it look like a city. If they come across a dead body, they would hull it back to a graveyard and plant it there.

I don't think when a player dies that his body just dissapears, it should lay on the ground and go through some stages of decompisiton, and eventully be a skeleton on the ground. Some animals may eat the dead bodys or bones so they eventually would dissapear, but they would stay arround long enough for someone to find them and have a chance to burry them or see that yes, evil lives in the area, beacuse of all the skeletons laying arround the cave entrace or something.

Graveyards would grow and expand, and players can designate areas as graveyards, or even burry someone anywhere really. Tomb stones wouldn't be readdly avaible, so likely most of the graves would be marked with a stick cross or a pile of stones or something. Those eventually would rot away or be scattered, and even the grave would be lost, no eveidence of the dead player left.

For truely great players with many followers, or very rich players, would get tombstones and monuments, even buildings built in there memory. This would add a sense of depth to the game and make it feel more real.

To walk into a graveyard and read tombstones that are not fake but are in memory of a real dead player.

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-08-07 10:42:35
In-Reply-To: 1779

I am beginning to like this graveyard idea the more I hear of it, especially the idea of a tomb monument being in direct relation to the character's greatness. This would definitely spice up the game a lot. Some of these tomb monuments could in fact even be large catacombs with many mortal possessions, and perhaps a guardian or two ;)

Further, NPCs carrying corpses inspired me. Read the new thread.

From: ReSpawner
Date: 2002-08-07 13:17:14
In-Reply-To: 1781

Or if we go even further it could actualy develop into like a city or maybe a new religion if it was soemoen really important =D

From: raeky
Date: 2002-08-11 04:41:19
In-Reply-To: 1781

Thanks. :)

I think NPCs should be very dynamic and have the ability to learn any skill and blueprint that a player can. I somewhere discussed this in greater detail about nps and even npc "trash" races that collect valueables and do things whith them rangeing from selling/giving away to sacraficeing them to there gods, or even tossing them into the ocean (another sacrafice ritual). these deposits of items would become very valueable quest rewards to people who try to find out where they are.