Quote from: LibraryLass;714395I'd like to hear more about this campaign.

What would you like to know in particular? I will talk a bit about how I'm handling religion since that is the focus of the thread.

My setting is similar to Europe in the early 14th century- England, France, Italy, & Spain for example all exist. The year is 1311 and the papal curia has been moved to Averoigne in France.

"Clerics" as in the class from the Player's Hand Book, are vanishingly rare. The motif I associate with them is "living saint." Individuals holy enough to wield such divine gifts are rarely part of the actual clergy, which is largely made up of magic-users. I haven't had much opportunity to portray the church or its officials in my campaign, but I want to be able to present it as an earthly, corruptible institution, which I think is compromised if one assumes that every ordained priest can cure light wounds, etc.

I have given thought to the idea that anyone who ascribes to a monotheistic (not necessarily Abrahamic) religion could be a cleric, a la Ars Magica.

I allow each of my players to attempt to call for divine intervention once per adventure. Divine intervention takes the form of requesting a specific spell be cast on one's behalf, i.e. "I want Thor to cast magic missile on this Norker" or "I pray for three hours and call upon St. Jude to cast Cure Disease, and promise to donate 3,000 GP to the church."

The rules for courting divine favor come from a British game from the 80s called Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All. It contains a large chart which shows all of the Christian powers from the Trinity on down through Mary, the Angels, and all the saints, giving for each of them an astrological sign, "combat level" (which I have re-purposed to effective cleric level), resistance to appeals, and areas of favor and disfavor. I use TSR's Deities & Demigods as reference for which spells can be cast by which pagan gods. The Norse, Greek, Celtic, and Finnish pantheons (as presented in D&DG) are available for petitioning.

The numerous minor saints have low cleric levels but also rather low resistance to appeals scores, making them much more "approachable" than the old gods. I total up factors in favor of or against the power granting the miracle and we roll on a chart which gives a range of results which included whether the appeal is successful or not and whether or not there is a penalty- you may get the miracle but have to perform a Quest/Geas for the deity, or be subject to some other unpleasant or humbling effect.

My players are currently helping the dwarf fulfill a quest from Freya to retrieve three jars of her golden tears from a dark elf as recompense for her resurrection of one said dwarf's men-at-arms some time ago. That same hireling was killed again shortly thereafter, but there is no backing out.

The tone of my campaign's treatment of religion I would classify as irreverent but not mocking.

Quote from: Ravenswing;714449
Yeah, it bugs me.  Can we pretty please not have purported fantasy religions being just like the Roman Catholic church, circa 1870, only with the serial numbers filed off?

One of the first campaigns I ever played in had a roman church which had never become the state religion of Rome. It was just another human religion alongside arianistic Christianity, a celtic christian church of grail keepers centered on Joseph of Arimathia , druidism, and various pagan cults. Since the campaign focuses on a fantasy dark ages Europe there are probably other religions out in the wider world that we never encountered.

I am currently using renamed & updated Greek deities.  Lots of minor ones for local flavor.

I've never run nor played in a game with a Christian like Over deity set up.

"It's just a dumb game."  -- Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Early GREYHAWK featured the First Church of Crom, Scientist, Mitra's Witnesses, and the Church of Latter Day Great Old Ones.

It bugs me. Please leave Christianity out of my fantasy (and science fiction) games.

I don't want to offend others. I don't want to see my real-life religion mangled, misinterpreted and mistreated. I don't like thinly-disguised preaching. And if we allow a fantasy version of Christianity in our games, shouldn't it be the fully-realized version of Christianity? In other words, where no one and nothing can stand against the power of Christ?

Not much of a game that way, is it?

Maybe it's just my neighbors, but I get way too much of that modern-day 'cult' vibe from the Christians with a capital 'C' that I interact with every day. I don't need to game with them too.

And no. I don't need to replicate medieval Europe that faithfully. (Pun intended.) As we said in the SCA, we play out medieval times as we like to imagine it. If you put in fae folk and spells, you can just as easily leave out Christianity. Or stick to a fantasy S&S world that's not so rooted on medieval Europe.

Rant mode off.

Quote from: Baron;714517And if we allow a fantasy version of Christianity in our games, shouldn't it be the fully-realized version of Christianity? In other words, where no one and nothing can stand against the power of Christ?

Not much of a game that way, is it?

If we allow a fantasy version of Zeus in our games,  shouldn't it be the fully-realized version of Olympic deities? In other  words, where no one and nothing can stand against the power of Zeus if he so chooses?

Not much of a game that way, is it?  

Quote from: Baron;714517I don't want to offend others. I don't want to see my real-life religion mangled, misinterpreted and mistreated. I don't like thinly-disguised preaching. And if we allow a fantasy version of Christianity in our games, shouldn't it be the fully-realized version of Christianity? In other words, where no one and nothing can stand against the power of Christ?

.

I think being aware of what offends your players is helpful however what if they are not preaching but just drawing on it for inspiration because it is familiar to people or associated with the feel of the setting? It isn't necessarily a commentary on real world religions when you use aspects of them in your setting. I have a group with pretty mixed beliefs, but none of us gets upset if parallels from our belief systems show up in a game, because we know no one at the table is trying to make a point about religion. Mainly because it is a pretty terrible way to convince people of things. If my GM wants to persuade me to believe in something, or not believe in something, it would be a lot easier for him to argue with me directly than try to demonstrate the validity of his position over the course of a campaign.

Quote from: Old Geezer;714502"It's just a dumb game."  -- Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Early GREYHAWK featured the First Church of Crom, Scientist, Mitra's Witnesses, and the Church of Latter Day Great Old Ones.

No Orc Krishnas or Zen Goblins? I had guys in my play group that insisted on playing Priests of Katang, an Arduin class of priests so fierce, one had to make a ST. vs Death every time a priest of Katang slapped you.

GM: The Priest slaps you.... make a saving throw.

Player: Versus what?

GM: Make a saving throw vs. Death

Player: Why? It's just a priest slapping me?

GM: NO. It's a Priest of Katang! What is the sound of one hand clapping?

It's one of those things that I try to avoid while worldbuilding or picking up a setting, but they don't bother me terribly. And I understand the allure, as the sheer amount of various schisms, heresies and wars of religion connected to Christianity (I know other religions also had them, but that model is much more  known to the majority of RPers, who are after all mostly people from Christian - European culture sphere) is great material for gaming, with it's richness of conflict.

Quote from: Old Geezer;714502"It's just a dumb game."  -- Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

Early GREYHAWK featured the First Church of Crom, Scientist, Mitra's Witnesses, and the Church of Latter Day Great Old Ones.

We got the point that you'd consider an average RPG session these days "too much RP in my wargaming" 20 unfunny anecdotes ago, thanks.

Quote from: Baron;714517I don't want to offend others. I don't want to see my real-life religion mangled, misinterpreted and mistreated. I don't like thinly-disguised preaching. And if we allow a fantasy version of Christianity in our games, shouldn't it be the fully-realized version of Christianity? In other words, where no one and nothing can stand against the power of Christ?

Well, no, not really, especially not if there are multiple competing religions; quasi-Christianity vs quasi-Islam, for instance.  You can't have a real-world-ish setting with religious conflict among multiple religions where any one religion always wins. All the religions think their one is the best/truest, and usually have some facts on the ground to point to in support - victorious battles and suchlike.

Quote from: Rincewind1;714642We got the point that you'd consider an average RPG session these days "too much RP in my wargaming" 20 unfunny anecdotes ago, thanks.

I may tell unfunny anecdotes, but you're a dick.
Some people find my jokes funny, but you're still a dick.

Besides, it wasn't a joke.  People worry too fucking much about dumb shit and call it roleplaying.

But you only get 9/10 because you forgot to accuse me of "rollplaying" hurr durr hurr durr hurr durr...

Quote from: Old Geezer;714648I may tell unfunny anecdotes, but you're a dick.
Some people find my jokes funny, but you're still a dick.

Besides, it wasn't a joke.  People worry too fucking much about dumb shit and call it roleplaying.

But you only get 9/10 because you forgot to accuse me of "rollplaying" hurr durr hurr durr hurr durr...

I was expecting the usual pissing on boots, but I both appreciate the effort (well, that's a lie) and don't make lightly of prostate troubles.

Quote from: S'mon;714646Well, no, not really, especially not if there are multiple competing religions; quasi-Christianity vs quasi-Islam, for instance.  You can't have a real-world-ish setting with religious conflict among multiple religions where any one religion always wins. All the religions think their one is the best/truest, and usually have some facts on the ground to point to in support - victorious battles and suchlike.

Of course, the relativistic religion gets problematic, when you are ensured of existence of every single god .

Quote from: Ravenswing;714449Can we pretty please not have purported fantasy religions being just like the Roman Catholic church, circa 1870, only with the serial numbers filed off?[/COLOR]

Interesting. Why pick 1870 as representative for RPG versions of Catholicism? My thought was most RPGs focus on a medieval Catholic church for their theft.

Quote from: Mathias;714471The rules for courting divine favor come from a British game from the 80s called Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All.

That is a great book, and chock full of weird. Absolutely a must for anybody who loves to read stuff from the early days of RPGs.

I'll take pseudo-Christianity over the shotgun-splatter smorgasbord found in most rpg settings.

Quote from: Spinachcat;714670Interesting. Why pick 1870 as representative for RPG versions of Catholicism? My thought was most RPGs focus on a medieval Catholic church for their theft.

Most RPG authors think they mimic the "medieval" Catholic Church, I figure.  This falls under the Gamers Are Crappy Historians truism, though.

The truth is that a great many of the elements we see in RPG setting religions -- a Curia-analogue with many highly formalized positions, statutory vestments, infallible proclamations, a general lack of schisms or deep, openly hostile factions, the subordination of nationalist divisions to the center of the faith, holy texts available in the vernacular to all, a relative lack of temporal titles or pervasive corruption amongst the clergy, clergy widely viewed as set apart from the laity, prelates who tend not to be great feudal landowners, the supremacy of ecclesiastical authorities over temporal in matters of faith and preference -- are at odds with historical medieval European practice, and much more in tune with the late 19th century church.  

The only time I've even seen a reference to an "antipope" in a game setting was in some Harn material, and that was to past events.  The priests in most settings are faithful to their creeds, and regarded as such by the populace.  The extreme politicizing of the medieval and Renaissance Papacy, where the papal throne was a football between rival Italian families and between the French, Spanish and Holy Roman crowns, just has no parallel in the great majority of settings.