Quote from: VisionStorm;1115921More on the topic of the video, a series I saw somewhat recently (a few months ago) that covers some of these topics is Knightfall, which deals with the Templars, the King of France, etc., and include things mentioned in the video, such as the King trying to depose the current pope and plant his own and make France the dominant power instead of Rome and such. Don't know how historically accurate it is, since its a TV series and deals with the Holy Grail and such, but it's very recommended for inspiration about running a paladin focused campaign.

Fairly.

Avignon Papacy

I prefer there to be only one true God, but there may be some poor uneducated primitives who worship whatever.  Never know what you might stumble upon, out there in the jungle?

Quote from: VisionStorm;1115921...I think part of the issue is that the average player doesn't really care that much about role-playing an authentic Medieval world and just wants to run a round of monster bashing playing heroic characters and such. Most people I've played with don't even RP their character's religion unless they're clerics (and even then, its only a superficial RP when it's time to cast their healing spells or some such), and its usually the long term dedicated players who care about that stuff, while casuals just want to casualize (i.e. experience mindless entertainment).

This!!!

That and I've found most people have no idea how religions actually work. So when they roleplay their character they act how they think religious people act - which is not at all the same thing.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1115921Another issue is that a lot of people don't even know about historical periods that much, other than ...an often inaccurate idea of what they were like, which gets in the way of properly portraying or RPing an authentic, period-specific world.

This!

We have been fed a big fat Black Legend of what medieval societies were really like by modern educators. So most people would't have the first clue how to roleplay in that world without getting themselves killed by the king for insolence before they even left the castle on their quest...


If you want to have your game more firmly based in a vaguely medieval European setting, you need the following:

You need the people in your culture to self-police, to act virtuously and to be able to trust each other. (More or less...)

Christian Monotheism is different in the sense that its morality is universal. It's not just about how you act in public, but your private morality as well. You have to be honest towards everyone. There is no such thing as an allowance for lying and trying to twist the meaning of every word on a contract so it benefits you as much as possible; because this doesn't please God. And you should feel bad when you break his law.

i.e. You are part of a Guilt-Sin based religion/culture, and not an Honor-Shame based one.

The concept of forgiveness is also central to such a religion and society.  


So, if you want to have a Monotheistic "Christian" religion for your Medieval setting, you don't need "Christianity with the serial numbers filed off", but you will need:

1: A Monotheistic religion

2: This religion must command virtuous behavior and the rejection of Sins

3: It should promote a universal morality

4: It should promote some measure of forgiveness.


I am gradually working with converting the Norse pantheon to fit a "Christian" Monotheistic model. Things don't cross over one to one, and I'm incorporating as much of the Nordic nomenclature and concepts as I can while still adhering to the model; but it translating more straightforward than I thought.

Even if you don't go full bore "Medieval Authentic" just having a monotheistic universal religion will be a big change in most D&Dish medieval fantasy settings.

I generally prefer more Classical World type settings (Wilderlands, Primeval Thule), but did develop and run a monotheist quasi-Earth setting with a Church of the Unconquered Sun. This was back in 2008-13. Influenced by Rob's Points of Light, I had various campaigns set across about a thousand years of history, from the Dark Ages following the fall of the Bright Empire/Sharan Empire, to my Yggsburgh campaigns with an 18th century, Moll Flanders-meets-Hammer Horror tone.

It started off in 2008 with a campaign based on the Song of Roland ca AD 800 - http://files.meetup.com/252197/Willow%20Vale%20original.JPG - I definitely found having a Monotheist or Dualist (Unconquered Sun vs Baphomet) theology worked very well.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1115911I've always struggled with Yrth. It has some fantastic concepts and ideas, it just never quite gelled for me as a self-contained setting and I'm not entirely sure why; it's sort of a kitchen sink, but sort of not. I still have trouble wrapping my head around how to actually use it. In contrast, Infinite Worlds as a broader campaign setting I can much more easily come up with ideas for (maybe it's all the Stargate...). Either way it is an entertaining and interesting read, full of nice ideas (including its presentation of religion and divinity).

Banestorm is a book I really want to love, but it comes across as sort-of boring. I was hoping for something more like 7th Sea's Thea (alt-France, alt-Germany, etc.) than Megalos, Tredroy, et.al. But I do like the concept of varying mana zones; something I'd like to use in the next fantasy game I run.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1115921More on the topic of the video, a series I saw somewhat recently (a few months ago) that covers some of these topics is Knightfall, which deals with the Templars, the King of France, etc., and include things mentioned in the video, such as the King trying to depose the current pope and plant his own and make France the dominant power instead of Rome and such. Don't know how historically accurate it is, since its a TV series and deals with the Holy Grail and such, but it's very recommended for inspiration about running a paladin focused campaign.

A show about the Templars?
The Holy Grail in France?
With Mark Hamill?

KNIGHTFALL IS MY SH... (explode)

Quote from: Aglondir;1115958A show about the Templars?
The Holy Grail in France?
With Mark Hamill?

KNIGHTFALL IS MY SH... (explode)

If I ever play in a proper Medieval setting, I'm gonna play a paladin named Landry, or maybe Tancrede. And his battle cry will be: "By the Grace of God!"

QuoteOur "attitude" toward this ambivalent universe can only take one of two prototypical forms: positive or negative. The precise nature of these two forms (which can only be regarded as complex "personalities") and of the background against which they work constitutes the central subject matter of myth..." -- Maps of Meaning, p. 108, Jordan Peterson

Monotheism is when the precise nature of these two forms is determined by a consensus of the culture. Because good and evil are defined, the inferred world of AD&D has a monotheism and clerics (pre-UA) are monotheists, since they must be either good or evil, never neither or both. The deities they "worship" are intercessors for good or evil, although the DM is free to fill in the mythical and narrative details as he wishes

Quote from: VisionStormFinally got around watching the video!

I think part of the issue is that the average player doesn't really care that much about role-playing an authentic Medieval world and just wants to run a round of monster bashing playing heroic characters and such. Most people I've played with don't even RP their character's religion unless they're clerics (and even then, its only a superficial RP when it's time to cast their healing spells or some such), and its usually the long term dedicated players who care about that stuff, while casuals just want to casualize  (i.e. experience mindless entertainment). Another issue is that a lot of people don't even know about historical periods that much, other than perhaps a general (and often inaccurate) idea of what they were like, which gets in the way of properly portraying or RPing an authentic, period-specific world....

Another part of the issue is that many people don't understand what monotheism, or "God", actually is, so obviously that makes it difficult for them to simulate it in a game. If you ask someone if they believe in God, and they say no, then if you ask them what God is, the majority of the time their answer will reveal they are actually ignorant (literally "agnostic") on the matter, and most religious people don't believe in that interpretation of God either. Most people are not aware of the distinction between the experiential field, i.e. the "reality" in which we live and experience things in terms of positive and negative valence, and the empirical world of science which merely analyzes and provides ambivalent data.

For example, you will often see people using the crucifix as a magic charm to ward off bad things (and you will see this in games). That is not it's function, that's superstition (paganism). Its function is to act as a reminder to consciously emulate the positive ideals as exemplified by the mythic hero of the religion, to exercise your will as opposed to merely reacting to the world of experience the way that an animal does. In other words, it is quite literally a map of meaning drawn up by your ancestors who have already explored the territory that you are traveling and to help you avoid the potential catastrophic consequences of encountering the unknown.

It's also important to remember this point: when it is said that "God created the world", that is NOT referring to the empirical world of science, but the narrative/mythic "reality" conceived of in imagination, comprising imagistic representation of the behavioral pattern central to "morality" played out in an environment permanently characterized by the interplay of Known and Unknown (Maps of Meaning, pp. 102-103.). Assuming that thought can alter reality (magic in the game world), empirical reality and narrative/mythic reality are not mutually exclusive, but one bleeds into the other.

That is to say, one can have a campaign world where "God created the universe" and still have a world that follows the normal process of evolution as spelled out by science.

The Sky and Earth of Sumerian mythology are NOT the same sky and earth we talk about today in empirical terms, rather they are categories of apprehension, the dramatically represented Great Father and Great Mother of all things. To develop a realistic polytheism for the game, one must understand the culture and how to construct these categories. Lolth for example is clearly the Oedipal mother (evil Matriarch) that devours her children, Heironeous is obviously the Hero (it's in the name), Hextor the anti-hero (Heironeous and Hextor are brothers, iirc), and so on -- the entirety of Greyhawk mythos can be similarly understood. There are 7 such figures that are reoccurring in all mythology: the good/evil Patriarch, the good/evil Matriarch, the Hero (or Heroine) and the anti-Hero (or anti-Heroine), and primordial Chaos; these are the constituent elements of our experience.

This means that monotheisms and polytheisms can comfortably co-exist within the same game world. Multiple sets of narrative/mythic realities can co-exist like parallel realities, each intersecting the real material world (the point of contact being human consciousness), and I suspect this was the original idea of the Outer Planes in AD&D, which have names that are drawn from different mythologies. This is why there was originally no neutral Outer Plane (and why there should be none), as the Outer Planes were specifically representations of positive and negative valence, existing only within the world of experience, not objective ambivalent realities.

I like squabbling pantheons too much to ever use monotheism in a fantasy game.

Monotheism works well in Fading Suns because you have all the religious factions, cults and heretics. The Pancreator (the one true god in Fading Suns) is open to constant re-interpretation and every time the main church turns around, some backwater planet is getting the doctrine wrong and winds up with some crazy ass heresy.

Much like 40k and the God Emperor of Mankind.

I'll get around to the video later. but I have to agree with Spinachcat on this. Not to mention it avoids a lot of issues when the players put the beat down on an evil priest. Unless you want to bring in the politics of why your heroic murderhoboes killed a high ranking priest of one's religion, despite nasty evil stuff going on by said priest. Or maybe you do, would make an interesting RP exercise after the dungeon trek.

Quote from: TNMalt;1115988I'll get around to the video later. but I have to agree with Spinachcat on this. Not to mention it avoids a lot of issues when the players put the beat down on an evil priest. Unless you want to bring in the politics of why your heroic murderhoboes killed a high ranking priest of one's religion, despite nasty evil stuff going on by said priest. Or maybe you do, would make an interesting RP exercise after the dungeon trek.

  Evil High Priests in this setup are obviously worshipers of demons or heathen false gods.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1115911I've always struggled with Yrth. It has some fantastic concepts and ideas, it just never quite gelled for me as a self-contained setting and I'm not entirely sure why; it's sort of a kitchen sink, but sort of not. I still have trouble wrapping my head around how to actually use it. In contrast, Infinite Worlds as a broader campaign setting I can much more easily come up with ideas for (maybe it's all the Stargate...). Either way it is an entertaining and interesting read, full of nice ideas (including its presentation of religion and divinity).

Yrth has a number of problems from a gaming perspective.  The world is generally too civilized and populated for most D&D style adventures.  There will almost always be someone in authority with sufficient power to bring down unruly PCs.  The world is a kind of bland movie medieval, with magic preventing plagues and making the political situation more stable not less because it performs as technology in the world it's dangerous and powerful but not evil or obscure so no fear of witches either.  It's also a bit bland in a moral sense: it's a world where there isn't really a cosmic force of morality and there's every indication that even demons are basically from another world. Compare goblins and centaur's origins and it starts looking pretty clear that the demons are probably from somewhere in the centaur world because that's where all the hybrid types are from.  I think Fighters of the Purple Rage and Mordag's Little Finger are the best adventures set in Yrth (sorry Harkwood).  In the first a group of escaped gladiators are hiding in the sewers of Megalos and in the second a wizard's staff turns out to be the finger bone of a giant vampire (stack those templates boys).  The first is a dungeon crawl and the second an urban mystery.  I think Yrth needs more development.  Another continent, other worlds, bigger and better maps.  But I do love Yrth.  It throws people some curve balls on their fantasy assumptions.  Goblins are merchants and craftsmen who are accepted in society?  (to be fair Megalos would be Lawful Evil in D&D)  The watch has access to professional wizards in most towns?  The villagers are afraid of monsters but not witches?

In some ways you can do interesting contrasts between the far more popular Old World of Warhammer which also strives for a certain medieval authenticity.  Its teeming, plague ridden cities, diseases and mutillation, insanity.  Yrth is pretty clearly a consequence of Steve Jackson's involvement in the SCA and The Old World is clearly a result of Rick Priestly and company living among the echoes of the actual middle ages.

That doesn't necessarily make Yrth a worse setting, but it's more akin to Traveller's Third Imperium, a big open place to set your adventures that includes most of the elements you might need.

Greyhawk is quite another thing than either.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1115968the inferred world of AD&D has a monotheism and clerics (pre-UA) are monotheists, since they must be either good or evil, never neither or both.

Okay, but that's false. The AD&D 1e PHB is very clear: "The cleric can be of any alignment (q.v.) save (true) neutral (see Druid hereafter) alignment, depending upon that of the deity the cleric serves.".

Clerics are very clearly permitted to be lawful neutral or chaotic neutral, both of which are 'neither good nor evil'.

I dunno if it's even clear that the prevailing Christianity of the time, Catholicism, was monotheistic.  Saints basically took over the role of gods, often displacing native gods but in name only.  Whatzit the local god or goddess became St. Whatzit and was still venerated/worshiped.

The old computer game Darklands used this to great effect.

Quote from: JeremyR;1116004I dunno if it's even clear that the prevailing Christianity of the time, Catholicism, was monotheistic.  Saints basically took over the role of gods, often displacing native gods but in name only.  Whatzit the local god or goddess became St. Whatzit and was still venerated/worshiped.

The old computer game Darklands used this to great effect.

True, plus there were still pagan people at the periphery, like the Danes IIRC and other Germanic peoples. And even within Christendom the Virgin Mary all but replaced the old mother goddesses, which is how she became so prevalent within Catholicism (which I believe wasn't the case in early Christianity before it's spread through Europe), so the trappings of paganism were still there.