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.

Quote from: S'mon;714217I'm fine with explicit analogues of Christianity: "This is World X's version of medieval Christianity". So, a Monotheist religion that has great political and moral power. I don't like muddled "Christian church with pagan gods at the altar" type affairs, which most D&D settings have. Greyhawk is one of the worst offenders, religion there seems to make no sense at all AFAICT. Forgotten Realms is more pagan and less Christian, but has still had silly ideas of compulsory patron deities and treating the different gods as different religions. Not long ago I had a player reluctant to have her Ranger PC pray to Kelemvor for a dead man's safe journey to the afterlife (Kelemvor being the shepherd of the dead) - she was worried her patron goddess Mielikki would be offended!

This.

I would find a monotheistic setting cool (complete with political and religious rivalries). I would find a polytheistic setting cool (Runequest style cults). I would find a setting that mixes different types of religions (like Game of Thrones) cool.

What I don't like is what usually happens with D&D: there is a giant collection of gods that everyone agrees exist. They may or may not be like a pantheon, but regardless everyone picks one god out of the bunch and worships them in a monotheistic style, though they all tend to tolerate each other.

Some religious ideas I'd like to use in a fantasy game:
* A monotheistic setting where there is a strong religious / political structure with various political and religious factions that cross kingdom boundaries. Have one god that does objectively exist, but not everyone agrees what the god wants or what the proper method of worship is. Conspiracy plots, secret sects, and religious wars run rampant.

* A polytheistic setting without a pantheon, where each city-state worships its own god and battles with others for religious and political supremacy. If I went this route, I'd also be tempted to go with a more Populous-style method for granting powers to clerics (allowing the performing of miracles based on converting followers, establishing temples, and destroying enemies).

Quote from: Baron;714517It 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 think its quite reasonable to go with what you know, so long as players of native characters have some idea of what that is and it doesn't offend your group.

I do like an authentic campaign. If someone is running a campaign in magical ancient greece, then I sure hope they try to make the religion seem...greek, rather than having Deacons of Hercules, Arch-Bishops of Aphrodite or a Pope of Zeus.

Quote from: Ben Rogers;714244The Christian church, if you look at the myriad of denominations and sects, drew much (perhaps even most, and if you read some scholars, all) of it's ritualism and belief structure from the religions that came before.

The concept of a Messiah figure was not new in Jesus' time - nor even a virgin birth, a death and resurrection, sacrificial atonement for sins.  

You only have to look at the Egyptian cult(s) of Isis to find analogies to the confessional.

Nearly everything in the Christian church can be found in older, deeper roots of other religions.

So, slapping another deity on top of an existing hierarchy doesn't strike me as any more "intellectual laziness" as, oh, say, not inventing a completely different language.

Most of medieval roleplaying is taking a given set of historical references and tossing a few new things into the mix to see what kind of ripples result.

There's a lot to be said for giving the GMs and players interesting twists while providing them with something familiar to grasp.

If it were "intellectual laziness" then it would be a closer replica of Christianity "with the serial numbers filed off" - which has been done before, over and over again.

As a follower of the teachings of Christ and a student of history, I rather enjoy other people's takes on the "what if Christianity was a little different?".

Knowing that you're obviously not just christian but very serious about it, I think that's an interesting admission.  Most US protestant/fundamentalist/evangelicals are kind of desperate to try to claim that Christianity was something really unique (to the point that many try to claim that any apparently parallels were actually cases of pagans copying christianity, even if the dates don't add up).

RPGPundit

I avoid faux-christianity because I find that to be terribly insulting to real life faith.

Instead, I actually do some work on the world creation and mythology, because 'meh' and just throwing up some faux-christianity pastiche is just as lazy as the Forgotten Realms style smorgasboard that Dan Bulter rightly mocks.  The real problem with portrayal of religion in fantasy gaming is that we want inoffensive sorta-religions. If you're going to have active gods in your setting, then you need to give them some hard thought, because they are in effect powers in your world. Even Eru Illuvatar and the Valar in Tolkien were active, if distant, players - just as the Lords of Law and Chaos or the Gods of Newhon were in their respective settings. Even if you have an atheist setting, you're still not off the hook - in fantasy settings, people believe in various forms of religion, mythology and mysticism, even if there are no magical powers associated with such. Crypts and Things specifically does this,if memory serves.

Most of the problems with Crystal Dragon Jesus comes from GMs who are too lazy to seriously consider religion in their setting and it's impact in setting creation. Religion should be like everything else in the setting - unique as you want to make it.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;715584I avoid faux-christianity because I find that to be terribly insulting to real life faith..

As a Christian myself, I wrote High Valor to /not/ mock my faith (or anyones) but to simply be something you'd see in the time period I chose and the fictional world I'd created.

t took more work to come up with something I felt wasn't mocking, was functional, interesting, than say my current D&D settings which has evolved from a bunch of random rolls into a cohesive thing I build from random parts (because, I didn't want to do a lot of hard work when I started it...and now its hard work and I'm loving it because its different than what I'd have written otherwise.)

"Crystal Dragon Jesus" keeps me humming "Crystal Blue Persuasion." Look it up online, great song. But the dreamy vibe would go well, I think...

Quote from: jgants;714978Some religious ideas I'd like to use in a fantasy game:
* A monotheistic setting where there is a strong religious / political structure with various political and religious factions that cross kingdom boundaries. Have one god that does objectively exist, but not everyone agrees what the god wants or what the proper method of worship is. Conspiracy plots, secret sects, and religious wars run rampant.

* A polytheistic setting without a pantheon, where each city-state worships its own god and battles with others for religious and political supremacy. If I went this route, I'd also be tempted to go with a more Populous-style method for granting powers to clerics (allowing the performing of miracles based on converting followers, establishing temples, and destroying enemies).

That sounds pretty damned awesome, both ideas.

The usual D&D cleric issues solve themselves when the setting is more concrete than the usual HEY LETS DUNGEON vague mush many folks use when playing D&D.

One of the gaming bits I'm most proud of producing[1] is a writeup of a medieval church that was intended to be as much like medieval Christianity in form and doctrine as possible, without actually being Christianity.  I started with Roman Mithraism and ended up with something that feels very like the medieval church, but with its own dogma, history, parables, and ranks of initiation.

[1] Most stuff I produce is half-assed shite with a half-life of about two hours - I get paid to manage servers, not play elfgames

Quote from: daniel_ream;715914One of the gaming bits I'm most proud of producing[1] is a writeup of a medieval church that was intended to be as much like medieval Christianity in form and doctrine as possible, without actually being Christianity.  I started with Roman Mithraism and ended up with something that feels very like the medieval church, but with its own dogma, history, parables, and ranks of initiation.

Load it up and link it, I'd be very interested to take a look!

Almost all fantasy religions feel like "Crystal dragon Jesus" to me.

Quote from: Arduin;714518If 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?  

AFAIK, no one is currently worshiping Zeus, so who's to be offended?

Quote from: jgants;714978What I don't like is what usually happens with D&D: there is a giant collection of gods that everyone agrees exist. They may or may not be like a pantheon, but regardless everyone picks one god out of the bunch and worships them in a monotheistic style, though they all tend to tolerate each other.

I want to gripe about this, too, and I think the Pathfinder pantheon is one of the worst offenders.  I find many of their deities simply make no sense.  None!

http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Lamashtu

Mother of monsters.  Okay...  Loves deformities, and is, for some reason Chaotic evil.  She really seems too tolerant to qualify as 'evil' to me.  And matronly.  She wants to make more monsters, but isn't that largely just procreation?

And why do gnolls consider themselves deformed??  Wouldn't gnolls consider themselves to be beautiful and the rest of us to be ugly?

I don't know.  It just feels like about fifteen minutes of thought put to pen and expanded upon over time.  It does not feel like a 'god' to me.

Now, loving deformities would make a GREAT feature of a chaotic neutral deity (to revel in the chaos of it), but I expect too much...

I'm just going to pop in and say that TVTropes is awful.

Quote from: mcbobbo;716972http://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Lamashtu

Mother of monsters.  Okay...  Loves deformities, and is, for some reason Chaotic evil.  She really seems too tolerant to qualify as 'evil' to me.  And matronly.  She wants to make more monsters, but isn't that largely just procreation?

She was a demon lord who ascended to godhood, this is pretty obvious if you think about it for two seconds.