View Full Version : Temples, Alignment, and Paladins
ShadowMoon
05-11-2007, 09:49 AM
And keep in mind, that back then there was only one Haelyn temple, the Imperial Temple, and within the Empire it was the superior of faiths, and recognised as a governing religious institution of the Empire (like a State Religion in present realms). So I am pretty sure that Imperial Temple sticked with Roeles. Roeles were like earthly manifestation of their overlord, and their protectors from the day one.
And I don't believe Emperors controled Temple holdings directly at anytime, though they had much influence within the Temple, and probably many of Roele's house were High Priests (like younger brothers, etc.). But I am sure that Temple swore their allegiance and signed a writ of vassalage to the Emperor.
Probably similar scenario went for Guilds, ie. Imperial Guild managed the economy of the Empire, and again there were probably some of Roele's blood that were Guild Masters, but Emperors never had any Guild holdings. Again they were most probably vassals of the Imperial seat.
And all landed rulers within the Empire were vassals of the Iron Throne.
All "court" Wizards swore their allegiance to the Royal (Imperial) College of Sorcery, the sole center of the legal arcane society. College of Sorcery was under direct sponsorship of the Iron Throne and swore the oath of vassalage to the Emperor.
What I am saying is that the Emperor is a single govermental body, and he never had Temple and Guild holdings let alone Sources, only Law holdings, colonial assets and lands before Godswar with Imperial City and some surrounding territory (Anuire province) remaining. But Imperial Temple, and Imperial Guild were vassals to the Iron Throne, as well as remaining landed rulers.
Emperors commanded Imperial Legion that was elite (praetorian-like) army, with a full support of the Knights of Haelyn. So no matter that main bulk of Anuirean military was commanded and mustered by various nobles, Imperial seat was never defenseless, nor easy to conquer either by mundane or magical means or through the diplomacy.
Besides not many nobles would turn against their liege openly, because they would go directly against their own right to rule their realm, as well as against their patron Haelyn. So plots and schemes were always present, but Imperial position of Roeles was never seriously endangered.
Till Boeruine started the coup with the help of Michael Roele's older sister. But Michael dealt with that properly, though his sister made a pact with the Gorgon later, thus leading Michael Roele to his doom on the fields of Gorgon's Crown, and leaving the Empire without a heir, which lead to fall of the Imperial line, and the Empire.
Slightly-Off Topic:
I never understood how Boeruine got away with this, I mean its a terribile stain on their name, especially now when the "myth" of the great Empire is something that makes Anuirean hearts swell with pride.
EDIT: Important!
Majority of these posts were moved from Avanil thread, and many were posted regarding the Imperial might and right to hold the Iron Throne even if Roeles had no recorded land of their own after the Godswar. Please take this into the consideration...
kgauck
05-11-2007, 12:37 PM
The idea of a Divine Dynasty is more realistic in a Fantasy Game (if you can pardon the seeming paradox) than in our real world.
I disagree. People in the 15th century believed as much as anyone can believe that a real god made his will manifest in this world. Just because we are more impressed with the mechanics of spell effects doesn't mean that they would be more persuasive than whatever evidence a 15th century figure might point to. Once you believe that your god makes his will manifest, you believe it, fantasy game elements won't make it more believable.
Who in their right mind would go against a family directly related to the very god they called on in battle...and nearly all other things as well?Anyone who
1) thought that the ruler had betrayed Haelyn and lost the Mandate of Heaven,
2) was also related to Haelyn and believed that in a family squabble Haelyn would side with him because he's in the right (and everyone thinks they are right, its what enables action) or at the very least believes that Haelyn will stand neutral
3) cases of 1, 2, or both of the above will be a significant portion of the troubles facing any ruler.
dalor
05-12-2007, 02:03 AM
So you really don`t think that if the Pope could
literally cause Angels to come to earth and invoke the
will of an All-Mighty God...and not only the Pope but
Cardinals, Arch-Bishops, Bishobs and even the lowly
Friar...that the Reformation would still have come to
be and that various Kings would still have rebelled
against the will of the Pope?
Not getting into a religious discussion here really;
but I will stand firm that I whole-heartedly disagree
with you concerning the Roele family.
Where the various religions of the world can obviously
show scientific reasoning for the existence of an
All-Mighty, the primary tool for most religions is
faith.
On the other hand, we have men in the Imperial Temple
of Haelyn that can invoke fire from the sky and raise
the dead on a daily basis. There is little need for
faith in such a fantastical religion as this...no need
at all really when everyone accepts magic because they
have SEEN the magic.
I should know, because I`m a Priest and excercise my
faith daily...and wish daily I could SHOW those of
little faith that what I`m saying is SCIENTIFICALLY
true...like the men of Haelyn`s Temple and Roele`s
family could by invoking the magic granted them.
So again...there is a HUGE difference between this
real world and the applications of faith and the
fantasy world of Cerilia where men and women can at
any time in their life "tempt the Lord" and expect to
see a Priest perform a miracle.
The primary difference between believing that an
All-Mighty is making their will manifest in the world
and SEEING that will being implemented beyond your
ability to explain is so vast as to be beyond
comparison.
--- kgauck <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> The idea of a Divine Dynasty is more realistic in a
> Fantasy Game (if you can pardon the seeming paradox)
> than in our real world.
> -----------------------------
>
>
> I disagree. People in the 15th century believed as
> much as anyone can believe that a real god made his
> will manifest in this world. Just because we are
> more impressed with the mechanics of spell effects
> doesn`t mean that they would be more persuasive than
> whatever evidence a 15th century figure might point
> to. Once you believe that your god makes his will
> manifest, you believe it, fantasy game elements
> won`t make it more believable.
>
>
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Who in their right mind would go against a family
> directly related to the very god they called on in
> battle...and nearly all other things as well?
> -----------------------------
>
> Anyone who
> 1) thought that the ruler had betrayed Haelyn and
> lost the Mandate of Heaven,
> 2) was also related to Haelyn and believed that in a
> family squabble Haelyn would side with him because
> he`s in the right (and everyone thinks they are
> right, its what enables action) or at the very least
> believes that Haelyn will stand neutral
> 3) cases of 1, 2, or both of the above will be a
> significant portion of the troubles facing any
> ruler.
>
>
>
> The fact that every noble was with little doubt
> invested by a Priest who belonged to the church of
> the
> Imperial Family`s direct relation would be a primary
> facet in every man`s thinking. The fact that the
> Roele`s had a True Bloodline no doubt meant that
> they
> were literally looked upon as near-gods at the
> least.
>
> Did the Roele Emperors have land? Without a doubt.
> It can`t be overlooked though that religion played a
> significant part in their rule and their early ideas
> of "Manifest Destiny"...If Haelyn were the King of
> the
> Gods, why not should his own people be lords over
> all
> others?
>
> Religion no doubt played even more a role in the
> affairs of the Anuirean Empire than it ever did in
> the
> Pope`s tenuous hold over Europe until the time of
> the
> Reformation Movement.
>
> Not only did the Emperor rule as a Temporal Emperor,
> but he was the direct relation to a God that was the
> God of an entire people...and I`m sure that is
> exactly
> how the various Temples to Haelyn taught it. Were
> the
> Catholic Pope`s one continuous family of decent from
> Jesus himself would be the only way to compare the
> two...and obviously they were not.
>
> So I second the idea that once there were no more
> Roele`s to sit on the throne, it is little wonder
> the
> Empire has never recovered: the entire idea that
> Gods
> ruled the people was shattered and with so much
> doubt
> then in place there was no hope for the Empire to
> survive.
>
> Thanks for the quote by the way, its always good to
> read the thoughts of other people...who are you
> quoting?
>
>
> --- kgauck <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> > kgauck wrote:
> > ------------ QUOTE ----------
> > Very true...they were most often figureheads,
> until
> > the advent of the modern era really...My point was
> > only that a national leader can lead without
> having
> > lands...even in a feudal system.
> > -----------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> > In the modern era, vast bureaucracies can inforce
> > the impersonal will of the state, which can make a
> > figurehead appear powerful. But it is the inertia
> > and raison d`etre of the organization that keep it
> > going, not the desires of a leader. Leaders who
> > oppose the bureaucracy can destroy themselves.
> >
> > "It must be considered that there is nothing more
> > difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of
> > success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to
> > initiate a new order of things. For the reformer
> has
> > enemies in all those who profit by the old order,
> > and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would
> > profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising
> > partly from fear of their adversaries, who have
> the
> > laws in their favour; and partly from the
> > incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe
> in
> > anything new until they have had actual experience
> > of it. Thus it arises that on every opportunity
> for
> > attacking the reformer, his opponents do so with
> the
> > zeal of partisans, the others only defend him
> > half-heartedly, so that between them he runs great
> > danger."
>
>
>
>
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ShadowMoon
05-12-2007, 02:29 AM
I agree with Dalor, though I doubt that Priests practice their Divine Channeling that regulary. So probably most of people never see "Divine Manifestation" anyway. When Priest gives blessings, differs strongly from when he actually invokes Bless as a spell. No need to mention the rarity and special circumstances for powerful high level spells. Priest is a faithful servant and a guide on Heaven/Hell/World relation. He wouldn't dare to mess with God's plans lightly, so he will be very carefull with his prayers, rituals, and invokations.
Resurrection is a great example. Sure Gods grant such power to mortals, but if a God didn't wanted someone to die, that someone wouldn't needed to be resurrected in the first place. No need to mention Bloodline complication if one Scion is returned to life, and Bloodline is a form of Divine Essence. Very few Priests would be so arogant and/or foolish to try to undo God's will.
Autarkis
05-12-2007, 03:27 AM
Resurrection is a great example. Sure Gods grant such power to mortals, but if a God didn't wanted someone to die, that someone wouldn't needed to be resurrected in the first place. No need to mention Bloodline coplication if one Scion is returned to life, and Bloodline is a form of Divine Essence. Very few Priests would be so arogant and/or foolish to try to undo God's will.
I disagree. The pantheon is still made up of opposing factions. They are not viewed as one monolithic entity, but different groups seeking to oppose the other, with the caveat they won't interfere directly. So a person dies, and a priest won't raise them because a god wished the person dead? If it was Haelynite wishing to raise a champion, what is to say Haelyn doesn't want him raised and Belinik sought to kill him?
Priests are the "hands" of the gods and do their will. It would be less arrogant/foolish and more them doing their part to ensure the balance is kept. If Haelyn (or whoever your god is) didn't want the spell to work, then it won't. That will be the test of whether it is against his god's will.
ConjurerDragon
05-12-2007, 08:00 AM
Anthony Edwards schrieb:
> So you really don`t think that if the Pope could
> literally cause Angels to come to earth and invoke the
> will of an All-Mighty God...and not only the Pope but
> Cardinals, Arch-Bishops, Bishobs and even the lowly
> Friar...that the Reformation would still have come to
> be and that various Kings would still have rebelled
> against the will of the Pope?
>
Certainly :-)
One one part because it does not matter what the real pope could do - as
long as the people believed what he could do.
When someone living in a former century had the firm belief that the
pope and his clergy had the power to sent their souls to hell - in a
time where life was a misery and the promise of a heaven kept lots of
people going, then they did not need to actually see the pope summoning
an angel. Even a fire started from a random lightning bolt would have
been seen as "punishment for the evils of that village" because people
firmly believed that lightning was sent from god.
On the other part because those who rebelled/supported the reformation
are not the lowly peasants but those that in a fantasy world would be
nearly on the same level as the pope. Learned men, Clerics, Dukes first
not questioning the pope or the church, but the behaviour and seeing a
chance to claim more power.. Moral critizism of the leaders - even a low
priest of Haelyn might perform just as Martin Luther did.
> "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the Scriptures or
> by clear reason ... I neither can nor will make any retraction, since
> it is neither safe nor honourable to act against conscience. God help
> me. Amen."^[32] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#_note-20>
> On the other hand, we have men in the Imperial Temple
> of Haelyn that can invoke fire from the sky and raise
> the dead on a daily basis. There is little need for
> faith in such a fantastical religion as this...no need
> at all really when everyone accepts magic because they
> have SEEN the magic.
>
And that irks me sind the transition to 3rd edition. I just loved 2nd
editions Birthright scarcity on Raise Dead magic. Perhaps a dozen
priests in all of Cerilia able to raise the dead suited my imagination
very well. Raising the dead as daily routine - bah.
> I should know, because I`m a Priest and excercise my
> faith daily...and wish daily I could SHOW those of
> little faith that what I`m saying is SCIENTIFICALLY
> true...like the men of Haelyn`s Temple and Roele`s
> family could by invoking the magic granted them.
>
But they did not and could not. Because D&D assumes that a god grants
spells even to those that have slightly different views. Just as in the
current BR timeline different temples of Haelyn compete there could
always have been some disagreement between faction withing the former
united temple - and clerics on both sides of an argument could do the
same things.
> The primary difference between believing that an
> All-Mighty is making their will manifest in the world
> and SEEING that will being implemented beyond your
> ability to explain is so vast as to be beyond
> comparison.
>
>
No. The faith of nowadays man is limited by knowledge of nature. Where
commen men in former times saw miracles we see the laws of nature or
simple physics - so former men did see gods will manifest in the world
believing his will to be behind everything that happened.
ShadowMoon
05-12-2007, 03:07 PM
btw, I am not sure where your comment on summoning angels comes from - as far as I am aware there are no deva's / demons etc in BR, only Shadow World creatures (who can admittedly stand in for either) so the church shouldn't have otherwordly minions, not that it really needs them with spell casting priests, paladins, etc.
In Godswar Azrai commanded legions of Demons, but when old gods were destroyed, Shadow World pulled them all in, including various Outsiders.
dalor
05-12-2007, 05:01 PM
Strictly a comparitive statement...not intended
literally. I was simply stating that to be able to do
such things would have made a vast difference in this,
our real world.
--- AndrewTall <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> btw, I am not sure where your comment on summoning
> angels comes from - as far as I am aware there are
> no deva`s / demons etc in BR, only Shadow World
> creatures (who can admittedly stand in for either)
> so the church shouldn`t have otherwordly minions,
> not that it really needs them with spell casting
> priests, paladins, etc.
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dalor
05-12-2007, 05:12 PM
Ohhhh...the impossible task of arguing a Fantasy
Setting with examples from our own world. LOL
I suppose it will ever be possible to put forth any
number of opinions and stances on any topic.
If I had the time I would debate more...
but instead all I can say is: it is easy to debate
topics on which none of us have ever had first hand
experience...none of us has ever seen the Pope speak
with an angel any more than we have seen a wizard
throw a fireball. LOL
Endless conjecture is all that results. ;-)
--- Michael Romes <Archmage@T-ONLINE.DE> wrote:
> Anthony Edwards schrieb:
> > So you really don`t think that if the Pope could
> > literally cause Angels to come to earth and invoke
> the
> > will of an All-Mighty God...and not only the Pope
> but
> > Cardinals, Arch-Bishops, Bishobs and even the
> lowly
> > Friar...that the Reformation would still have come
> to
> > be and that various Kings would still have
> rebelled
> > against the will of the Pope?
> >
> Certainly :-)
> One one part because it does not matter what the
> real pope could do - as
> long as the people believed what he could do.
> When someone living in a former century had the firm
> belief that the
> pope and his clergy had the power to sent their
> souls to hell - in a
> time where life was a misery and the promise of a
> heaven kept lots of
> people going, then they did not need to actually see
> the pope summoning
> an angel. Even a fire started from a random
> lightning bolt would have
> been seen as "punishment for the evils of that
> village" because people
> firmly believed that lightning was sent from god.
>
> On the other part because those who
> rebelled/supported the reformation
> are not the lowly peasants but those that in a
> fantasy world would be
> nearly on the same level as the pope. Learned men,
> Clerics, Dukes first
> not questioning the pope or the church, but the
> behaviour and seeing a
> chance to claim more power.. Moral critizism of the
> leaders - even a low
> priest of Haelyn might perform just as Martin Luther
> did.
> > "Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of
> the Scriptures or
> > by clear reason ... I neither can nor will make
> any retraction, since
> > it is neither safe nor honourable to act against
> conscience. God help
> > me. Amen."^[32]
>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#_note-20>
>
>
> > On the other hand, we have men in the Imperial
> Temple
> > of Haelyn that can invoke fire from the sky and
> raise
> > the dead on a daily basis. There is little need
> for
> > faith in such a fantastical religion as this...no
> need
> > at all really when everyone accepts magic because
> they
> > have SEEN the magic.
> >
> And that irks me sind the transition to 3rd edition.
> I just loved 2nd
> editions Birthright scarcity on Raise Dead magic.
> Perhaps a dozen
> priests in all of Cerilia able to raise the dead
> suited my imagination
> very well. Raising the dead as daily routine - bah.
>
> > I should know, because I`m a Priest and excercise
> my
> > faith daily...and wish daily I could SHOW those of
> > little faith that what I`m saying is
> SCIENTIFICALLY
> > true...like the men of Haelyn`s Temple and Roele`s
> > family could by invoking the magic granted them.
> >
> But they did not and could not. Because D&D assumes
> that a god grants
> spells even to those that have slightly different
> views. Just as in the
> current BR timeline different temples of Haelyn
> compete there could
> always have been some disagreement between faction
> withing the former
> united temple - and clerics on both sides of an
> argument could do the
> same things.
> > The primary difference between believing that an
> > All-Mighty is making their will manifest in the
> world
> > and SEEING that will being implemented beyond your
> > ability to explain is so vast as to be beyond
> > comparison.
> >
> >
> No. The faith of nowadays man is limited by
> knowledge of nature. Where
> commen men in former times saw miracles we see the
> laws of nature or
> simple physics - so former men did see gods will
> manifest in the world
> believing his will to be behind everything that
> happened.
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AndrewTall
05-12-2007, 05:41 PM
Strictly a comparitive statement...not intended
literally. I was simply stating that to be able to do
such things would have made a vast difference in this,
our real world.
I certainly agree that if a priest could just drop a lightning bolt on an unbeliever's head, heal the lame, etc, etc then the priesthood is likely to be even more powerful than in real life - although I seem to be outnumbered in the belief that mages will as a result be either hated and outcast by the church (as their power must be non-divine i.e. evil, and disproves the priestly I have magic therefore I speak for god argument) or that they will be a core part of the church (as clearly they are divinely blessed).
The game problem however is that if you make the churches much stronger than in RL they become absolutely dominant - facing down the pope was a major task for several English/British Kings despite the fact that the pope owned no land or armies, while concerns over 'papist plots' dominated British history for centuries after the split.
For a game to be interesting the church needs some power, but not so much that it can resolve any dispute at whim. That encourages a multitude of churches so that no one church has 'absolute truth', a pantheistic approach, etc, the additions of druids / elemental clerics who have power but follow no god, the removal of the core god focus, etc.
kgauck
05-12-2007, 05:44 PM
So you really don`t think that if the Pope could literally cause Angels to come to earth and invoke the will of an All-Mighty God...and not only the Pope but Cardinals, Arch-Bishops, Bishobs and even the lowly Friar...
If the Pope can summon angels, and he declares the Emperor Louis the Bavarian to be excommunicated, but the Archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier, who can also summon angels, argue that the Emperor is unjustly excommunicated, and in the right, why should I believe the Pope over the Archbishops? What if the Pope has also fought with the Franciscan order, bans the Franciscans, and all of them, lowly friars, continue to benefit from the grace of God and cast spells and sumon angels, and the Franciscans support the Emperor. Further, the Pope seems to be taking directions on at least some matters from the King of France, and learned people, such as Petrarch decry the Papacy and speak of an Avignon Papacy?
There is nothing in the D&D rules for declaring that one orthodoxy is correct, and the other is false. There are rules that say that defying your god will cost you spells. But let's be eccumenical and assume that Protestants please god as much as Catholics, and in such case both have spells, both summon angels, both have all the powers one would expect of functioning clerics in good standing.
Priests of Haelyn can be LE or CG. Both get spells, not only do they have different alignments, they can be expected to differ on the authority of priests over the faithful, the hierarchy of the church, responce to orthodoxy, literal interpretations of texts. We know that Fitzalan produced a significant theologiocal break with the Orthodox Imperial Temple, and both of them can cast Haelyn's spells and win his favor.
I think ConjurerDragon did a great job describing why things we consider natural the medieval mind would consider miraculous and direct evidence of divine action manifest. So I'll just add that the medieval experience with religion was not about faith. Faith is a modern invention to answer people's need for a diety now that we can explain the natural world without recourse to divinities. The medieval world needed to explain storms and natural disasters, and the death of children, plagues, indeed anything out of the ordinary and many ordinary things, like death, that were important. These were explained by recourse to the divine.
One's crops grow because God wills the crops to grow and feed us (there are Biblical texts which make this argument). Moderns believe that crops grow because water activates seeds which absorb nutrients and water then use sunlight to convert these into food, and grow according to natural laws. Its science. To the medieval the harvest was a miracle, and more so, the success of the harvest was a description of God's favor. A poor harvest showed disfavor, a good harvest strong favor. Then recall we must work in natural disasters and disease.
As an aside, the landmark event that caused moderns to consider this issue in a serious way was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, on All Saints Day while everyone was in church. To see a country's capital slain in church no less, to see the earthquake tumble the city, fires consume the city, and then a tsunami overwhelm the city, is a grave crisis. The old world view attributed this to the wrath of God, but moderns argued other causes, from the congestion of cities (Rousseau) to the arbitrary fragility of life and death (Voltaire), to more naturalistic explanations that volcanos and earthquakes are controlled by as yet undiscovered natural processes (techtonics and vulcanology are still way off).
Using spells and class powers to heal people, summon angels (to keep with this example), and perform miracles is just a game mechanical way of recreating the ideas that the medieval era had of itself (directly, indirectly through its own fantastic literature, and more indirectly through our fantasy literature which is just an evolution of earlier fantasies). If people never thought that gods were real and made work in the affairs of men, we not play games that pretended that there were such gods.
ShadowMoon
05-12-2007, 05:51 PM
But still, I cannot but get pissed off when people use fantasy Priest as a healer machine, or some spell slinger.
Like:
"Mommy, mommy I hurt my ankle! Don't worrie child Priest will heal you with Cure Light Wounds, you know, the one that resurrected three times ur daddy..."
Bleh it's so Forgotten Realms, yack Oo;...
Or even more lame, when adventurers (PCs) say; "yeah here is the gold Priest, if I die Ressurect me, and don't try to cheat us; use the True Resurrection..."
><;
PS: Srry for the rant...
...
Dcolby
05-13-2007, 03:39 PM
The real world is not black and white, but the D&D universe is.
I think that rests very heavily on the type of D&D the gamemaster presents. Certainly Greyhawk & the Forgotten Realms are very clearly "Black and White". The appeal to me and to my players that the Birthright setting holds is the grey that a Birthright setting brings.
Certainly the alignments are still there and part of the game, however the Birthright setting itself does not tend to overly reward the Extremes of Good nor does it punish the Extremes of Evil as in some published Greyhawk and F.R. adventures.
The "If the player that drinks of the fountain is Lawful and Good they are healed...or...Cured...or granted..." things do not tend to have a Birthright flavor. The players having influence over kingdoms and their own destiny also tend to move the game in more complicated paths.
Indeed being one of the Extremes in Birthright can make your path a very difficult one to tread.
ryancaveney
05-14-2007, 06:02 PM
A certain Italian once said something to the effect
that: "A ruler should always strive to do good, but
have the capacity to do evil when needed."
Exactly. A good ruler does bad things to those who try to do bad things to the people under his protection. IMO, saying "Oh, but that would be lowering myself to their level" is an admission of being unworthy to rule.
The way I like to think of it is in the words of the Witch from Sondheim's _Into the Woods_: "You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right." The job of the ruler is to be right, part of which is punishing anyone whose excessive desire for niceness interferes with doing what's right. The fun part is that no one ever agrees on what right really is, so there's always plenty of gray area.
We even tried one game where Alignment wasn`t used
I never use alignment in any of my games. Never have, never will. Kenneth Gauck is the only person who has ever said anything in favor of the alignment system that didn't make me recoil in disgust, but even he has been unable to convince me that D&D has ever made of it what he sees as possible, instead relying on it only as a poorly-implemented role-playing crutch for the weak-minded.
Indeed, given that the prototypical D&D campaign is dungeon crawling, which is properly defined as breaking into other sentient beings' homes, killing them, and stealing their possessions, all on the flimsy excuse that they are inherently "evil", is the best example ever invented of Chaotic Evil behavior. =) I'm perfectly serious -- I just think the irony is hilarious, too.
Ryan
ryancaveney
05-14-2007, 06:12 PM
none of us has ever seen the Pope speak
with an angel any more than we have seen a wizard
throw a fireball.
And this, as I see it, is the crux of the matter. In D&D worlds, wizards perform miracles which are much flashier than those of priests, without any need to bring gods into the picture. You can even be a member of the priest class and simultaneously a vocal atheist, since all you need to do is acknowledge some abstract idea as the inspiration for your power. The ubiquity of magic in D&D makes miracles much less religious. Turning water into wine would be a big deal in the real world, but something you can get done at the corner drugstore in D&D. IMO, in a world where D&D magic was real, religion would be a whole lot less persuasive (or at least very different in content), because its claims to the supernatural would be merely humdrum.
Ryan
Jaleela
05-14-2007, 07:28 PM
And this, as I see it, is the crux of the matter. In D&D worlds, wizards perform miracles which are much flashier than those of priests, without any need to bring gods into the picture. You can even be a member of the priest class and simultaneously a vocal atheist, since all you need to do is acknowledge some abstract idea as the inspiration for your power. The ubiquity of magic in D&D makes miracles much less religious. Turning water into wine would be a big deal in the real world, but something you can get done at the corner drugstore in D&D. IMO, in a world where D&D magic was real, religion would be a whole lot less persuasive (or at least very different in content), because its claims to the supernatural would be merely humdrum.
Ryan
Not really. Priestly magic would be hugely important to the common man. Check out the priestly realm spells, like 'bless' province. A village priest would give a village a much better standard of living if they could merely cure light wounds, or cure certain diseases, human or animal.
D&D magic is hugely expensive, but most religions who had temple holdings in provinces would be doing things for their parishoners that they could never afford as a service from a magic user. Priests in Birthright probably do more than any other class to prevent famine, and the other common ills of pre-industrial society than any other class.
Magic users, on the other hand, in a classic D&D sense, and as outlined in the game tend to be two-dimensional , introverted loners who are secretive, and who hoard their resources, and generally set themselves apart from the common man. Now they don't have to be that way, and they generally aren't in our campaign, but they sure can be by a straight-up read of the BR rulebook and the Book of Magic. Heck, even feudal lords tend to look out for their peasants as a matter of self-interest, while realm wizards want them to go away so they can tap into the magic of the land more effeciently.
I'd say they are mostly flash, with little real substance for anyone but themselves.;)
Dcolby
05-14-2007, 08:25 PM
I never use alignment in any of my games. Never have, never will.
Not arguing for or against alignment use here, I enjoy many different types of RPGs and most have no good/evil law/chaos axis just posing a question concerning your handling of those player classes that require the "Alignment Mechanic" (The Pali being the most obvious example, but others do exist).
Do you install some "Code" of behavior, vows, etc.. or do you dispense with the alignment driven classes? I would be interested in hearing/seeing your mechanic/ Ideas on the subject. :D
AndrewTall
05-14-2007, 09:13 PM
Not arguing for or against alignment use here, I enjoy many different types of RPGs and most have no good/evil law/chaos axis just posing a question concerning your handling of those player classes that require the "Alignment Mechanic" (The Pali being the most obvious example, but others do exist).
Do you install some "Code" of behavior, vows, etc.. or do you dispense with the alignment driven classes? I would be interested in hearing/seeing your mechanic/ Ideas on the subject. :D
Hmm. I only ever used alignment as an NPC aide to indicate the general approach of people to dealing with others around them.
I used a skill and powers type system to design a code of behavior for cavaliers, paladins etc - you choose the honor code that you follow and how strong it is and get compensated for it in other ways (i.e. the paladin had the right of holy justice, was unlikely to be accused of most crimes, etc). The PC could of course ignore the honour code but that wiped out the benefits if people heard about it. The beefing of paladins and priests to compensate for being god bothered never made much sense to me as it countered a roll-play advantage with a role-play disadvantage - never a good balance.
And this, as I see it, is the crux of the matter. In D&D worlds, wizards perform miracles which are much flashier than those of priests, without any need to bring gods into the picture. You can even be a member of the priest class and simultaneously a vocal atheist, since all you need to do is acknowledge some abstract idea as the inspiration for your power. The ubiquity of magic in D&D makes miracles much less religious. Turning water into wine would be a big deal in the real world, but something you can get done at the corner drugstore in D&D. IMO, in a world where D&D magic was real, religion would be a whole lot less persuasive (or at least very different in content), because its claims to the supernatural would be merely humdrum.
That's one reason why I liked birthright's magic rare setting - I wanted something closer to Barbara Hambley's works than the usual mage-fest, so I made both kinds of magic wielder (mage and priest) rare, and thus far more powerful when encountered.
The standard BR setting eliminates any priest without a set deity - meaning that only the chosen of the gods have healing miracles, etc. It also eliminates most wizardly magic, or makes it possessed only by 'evil' beings (elves, awnsheghlien). That double whammy puts the priesthood well on the road to being able to prove the holy word to the unbeliever...
Before the 'elf=fairy' lovers whine about the above comment, I'd note that human-elf history in BR does not encourage elves, and particularly elven mages, to be well thought of. The church was unlikely to encourage a more balanced viewpoint when writing the history books - the only other known mages aside from a handful of exceptions were the Lost - proof positive that all wizardly magic came from Azrai for most priests.
kgauck
05-15-2007, 12:07 AM
The ubiquity of magic in D&D makes miracles much less religious.
Considering both alignment and religion, both ideological questions, I think they remain important because ideology is important. People tend to act in consistant ways and these descriptions can refer to those guides. Now one of the key reasons that this thread assumes religious affiliation is because of the awe of magical power. I won't argue that, but will offer instead that these are not multualy exclusive. There is a god of battle, so martial prowess is not nearly as much in conflict with religion as it often has been because warriors and priests find themselves in competition, at least not if you can be a warrior-priest. Likewise with arcane magic. Multi-classing makes direct combinations less advantageous (at least without PrC's like Theurge), but there are other advantages to ideological affiliation.
The warrior is taught about meaning, norms, and rituals that support his role and conduct as a warrior. He hears about courgage, honor, duty, and the rest, and this ideology strengthens his resolve and determination. He learns methods of mental preperation, hears stories of past heroes to stiffen his heart, and learns rituals that keep the ancient wisdom alive and meaningful. Some warriors get so involved in this that they become sacred warriors (paladins) but for others its the ideology alone that provides a context for their actions.
Certainly a character could find their ideological source of inspiration from someplace other than the temples. The barracks might have its own values and purposes maintained by habits and songs taught from the veterans to the recruits, but that just amounts to a temple without the spells.
So likewise a wizard could ignore the gods and cast his spells as well as the warrior can swing his axe, but what the temples provide is a cosmology of magic, warnings of the dangers, especially of the seductive powers of the Shadow, and a code of conduct.
Its really just role play, and maybe the source of contacts, trainers, mentors, or apprentices, but an organization that can offer a worldview and back it up with power is going to remain a significant organization.
See also this post,
The temple is powerful because it provides three things, meaning, norms, and ritials.
dalor
05-15-2007, 03:10 AM
Then you would have loved my Paladin monarch of
Talinie who put the goblins of Thurazor to the sword
if they didn`t get away during his conquest...well,
only put them to the sword if they didn`t convert to
the worship of Haelyn as espoused by the tenants of
the Northern Imperial Temple that is.
The doctrine "Conversion by sword" held very true in
that game...and I found as my inspiration the many
religious wars "in the name of God" that have happened
in our world.
It is my basic belief that no man is "Good" or "Evil"
ever...we are just a blend of both and thus neither.
--- ryancaveney <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> A certain Italian once said something to the effect
> that: "A ruler should always strive to do good, but
> have the capacity to do evil when needed."
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Exactly. A good ruler does bad things to those who
> try to do bad things to the people under his
> protection. IMO, saying "Oh, but that would be
> lowering myself to their level" is an admission of
> being unworthy to rule.
>
> The way I like to think of it is in the words of the
> Witch from Sondheim`s _Into the Woods_: "You`re not
> good, you`re not bad, you`re just nice. I`m not
> good, I`m not nice, I`m just right." The job of the
> ruler is to be right, part of which is punishing
> anyone whose excessive desire for niceness
> interferes with doing what`s right. The fun part is
> that no one ever agrees on what right really is, so
> there`s always plenty of gray area.
>
>
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> We even tried one game where Alignment wasn`t used
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> I never use alignment in any of my games. Never
> have, never will. Kenneth Gauck is the only person
> who has ever said anything in favor of the alignment
> system that didn`t make me recoil in disgust, but
> even he has been unable to convince me that D&D has
> ever made of it what he sees as possible, instead
> relying on it only as a poorly-implemented
> role-playing crutch for the weak-minded.
>
> Indeed, given that the prototypical D&D campaign is
> dungeon crawling, which is properly defined as
> breaking into other sentient beings` homes, killing
> them, and stealing their possessions, all on the
> flimsy excuse that they are inherently "evil", is
> the best example ever invented of Chaotic Evil
> behavior. =) I`m perfectly serious -- I just think
> the irony is hilarious, too.
>
>
> Ryan
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dalor
05-15-2007, 03:10 AM
I hadn`t thought of it that way...good point.
The only counter I would have to that is that True
Wizards are very rare in Birthright...but anyone with
sufficient wisdom can call upon the Gods and be a
Cleric or Druid...anyone at all.
I`ve seen a ruler in Medeore demand that all
sufficiently wise men and women must be ordained to
the priesthood of Ruornil...something he had a hard
time implementing of course, but never the less it
proved in that game that clerics easily out-matched
wizards in general (realm magic excluded) simply due
to numbers. Just as the humans proved to the elves.
--- ryancaveney <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET> wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> none of us has ever seen the Pope speak
> with an angel any more than we have seen a wizard
> throw a fireball.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> And this, as I see it, is the crux of the matter.
> In D&D worlds, wizards perform miracles which are
> much flashier than those of priests, without any
> need to bring gods into the picture. You can even
> be a member of the priest class and simultaneously a
> vocal atheist, since all you need to do is
> acknowledge some abstract idea as the inspiration
> for your power. The ubiquity of magic in D&D makes
> miracles much less religious. Turning water into
> wine would be a big deal in the real world, but
> something you can get done at the corner drugstore
> in D&D. IMO, in a world where D&D magic was real,
> religion would be a whole lot less persuasive (or at
> least very different in content), because its claims
> to the supernatural would be merely humdrum.
>
>
> Ryan
>
>
>
> Birthright-l Archives:
> http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
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> LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
>
>
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ryancaveney
05-15-2007, 02:20 PM
Not really. Priestly magic would be hugely important to the common man. Check out the priestly realm spells, like 'bless' province. A village priest would give a village a much better standard of living if they could merely cure light wounds, or cure certain diseases, human or animal.
Priests in Birthright probably do more than any other class to prevent famine, and the other common ills of pre-industrial society than any other class.
This is a much bigger problem! A society with common priestly magic is NOT pre-industrial in a large number of important ways. Military life changes drastically, too: food creation and preservation spells render sieges impossible -- you must take castles by assault, because the defenders will never succumb to starvation or disease. Mages who fly and cast fireballs make conventional armies nearly obsolete, anyway. A society with lots of magic is in many ways similar to a highly technological one, and it is these effects of the magic system which have never been properly considered. A social system based on non-spellcasting rulers with medieval armies and medieval castles simply cannot survive D&D magic. To keep the right flavor, drastic changes to the magic system are necessary to even attain some degree of suspension of disbelief.
Universal access to the priest class is in fact the single biggest demographic headache possible: there simply must be some mechanism which prevents people joining up, because otherwise every single peasant would be insane not to take levels in the class, precisely in order to gain access to the magic you describe. My solution in birthright is to make the same distinction between blooded and non-blooded priests as is made between blooded wizards and non-blooded magicians. IMC, you have to have a bloodline to be able to cure wounds or disease or any of the standard D&D cleric stuff -- commoners can cast only illusion and divination, and the stat requirements for being able to do even that are tightened significantly.
ryancaveney
05-15-2007, 02:33 PM
Not arguing for or against alignment use here, I enjoy many different types of RPGs and most have no good/evil law/chaos axis just posing a question concerning your handling of those player classes that require the "Alignment Mechanic" (The Pali being the most obvious example, but others do exist).
Do you install some "Code" of behavior, vows, etc.. or do you dispense with the alignment driven classes? I would be interested in hearing/seeing your mechanic/ Ideas on the subject. :D
Anybody can have a code of behavior, make vows, etc., and many different philosophers and organizations offer suggested ones, but following, not following, or changing one never has any game mechanical effect. It can have profound social consequences, in terms of who chooses to associate with you, whether you go to prison, etc., but IMG codes of conduct are solely roleplaying hooks.
Paladins to me always (in my case, since 1980) seemed like merely a way to give humans access to the Fighter/Magic-User combination allowed to elves, half elves and such, but not to humans. Now that multiclassing is free for all, I see no reason it ought to exist as a separate class. It is precisely a combination of Fighter and Cleric, so it should be mechanic'ed simply by taking levels in each. Special stuff like the warhorse and laying on of hands is handled by spells, or junking it entirely.
Spells to detect alignment can give vague indications about personality (e.g., "this person is likely to follow the rules" or "this person has poor impulse control"), but never better than you can get just by talking to them for a few minutes. Spells to protect against or damage things based on alignment only apply to a few inherently magical creatures (awnsheghlien and ehrsheghlien in BR, some but not all extraplanar denizens in other campaign worlds). On the other hand, wizards are free to research "Protection from Goblins" or the like.
Ryan
ryancaveney
05-15-2007, 02:51 PM
Hmm. I only ever used alignment as an NPC aide to indicate the general approach of people to dealing with others around them.
Exactly the way it should be used, IMO. Personally, I prefer a different roleplaying shorthand, based on a popular personality theory in modern psychology (many of you in the working world may have been abused by a bad adaptiation of the Myers-Briggs/Keirsey version of Jungian type theory masquerading as the lastest in-thing for managers), but as a model of archetypes for listing what people find important, it's not all that bad. Of course, all nine descriptions as given in the text are of people who are so inflexible as to be clinically insane, but if you tone it down a few dozen decibels it can become a reasonable summary notation for NPC personality when you don't have time to develop a character in detail.
The beefing of paladins and priests to compensate for being god bothered never made much sense to me as it countered a roll-play advantage with a role-play disadvantage - never a good balance.
Exactly so! Its ONLY effects should be on the story, not the game rules.
Before the 'elf=fairy' lovers whine about the above comment, I'd note that human-elf history in BR does not encourage elves, and particularly elven mages, to be well thought of.
I am a committed elf-lover (I've used the term "elfnocentrist" on this list before), and this aspect is the thing I like best about Cerilia. Enough of this whining about how good things used to be and retreating to distant shores -- form up the Gheallie Sidhe and go slaughter the forest-burning humans! My favorite scene in Peter Jackson's version of LOTR is when Frodo offers Galadriel the ring; I practically leap out of my chair, screaming, "Yes! Take the ring! Rule the world as a true descendant of Feanor should, scouring the lands clean of the foul orcs, cheating humans, and endlessly annoying hobbits!" I love the fact that in Cerilia, elves hate and kill humans. In my Cerilia, Rhuandice Tuarlachiem rules Tuarhievel, has already slaughtered every last human inhabitant of Cariele, and is annihilating her way through Thurazor towards Talinie and Boeruine. =>
Ryan
ryancaveney
05-15-2007, 02:55 PM
Considering both alignment and religion, both ideological questions, I think they remain important because ideology is important. People tend to act in consistant ways and these descriptions can refer to those guides.
Hear, hear! Exactly how I use them.
Now one of the key reasons that this thread assumes religious affiliation is because of the awe of magical power. I won't argue that,
I do, because in Cerilia, the most powerful magic-users are the atheist elves and the awnsheghlien. However, even though in my cosmology, the gods in fact do not exist, religion is still a supremely important social force among humans (indeed, all the species except elves) for precisely the reasons you indicate below:
Its really just role play, and maybe the source of contacts, trainers, mentors, or apprentices, but an organization that can offer a worldview and back it up with power is going to remain a significant organization.
Ryan
Dcolby
05-15-2007, 05:15 PM
"Yes! Take the ring! Rule the world as a true descendant of Feanor should, scouring the lands clean of the foul orcs, cheating humans, and endlessly annoying hobbits!"
One word...MEDICATION... ;) Just kidding of course.
In regards to alignment again, I am working on a set of Virtues and Vices that players would select, say 7 or so (Seven Deadly sin thing I know I know) from a master list of about 12 virtues and 12 vices that would help you define your personality when building the the characters persona.
Not quite a robbery from Pendragon as the list would be role playing aids not a dice mechanic.
In regards to the classes with alignment requirements there would instead be a virtue/vice list.
Clerics and other prayer driven classes would have the Six Virtues/vices of their patron, plus one other that they could select that would accentuate or moderate their faith. (To keep the birthright flavor of Clerics not always being moral clones of their patron I would also allow them to substitute one of the Cardinal Virtue/Vices for another)
Spells that detect alignment would instead simply gauge how far apart two personas are in beleifs...say a sort of Aura reading.
In effect the only true Evil would be that of outsiders such as Demons and Devils and the like who of course have absolutely no redeeming "Anuirean" virtues. Of course then again I will need to do Virtues and Vices for every culture...sigh...
Still just working it out...
Just somthing I am playing around with.
ryancaveney
05-15-2007, 06:52 PM
One word...MEDICATION... ;) Just kidding of course.
Of course. =)
I am working on a set of Virtues and Vices that players would select... Not quite a robbery from Pendragon as the list would be role playing aids not a dice mechanic.
Allow me to quote myself from four years ago, quoting myself from even earlier than that (I have not been able to find the post from the archives which I was then quoting...)
Haelyn -- Honest, Just, Merciful, Temperate, Valorous
Erik -- Energetic, Generous, Prudent, Temperate, Suspicious
Cuiraecen -- Energetic, Proud, Reckless, Indulgent, Valorous
Nesirie -- Forgiving, Generous, Arbitrary, Merciful, Pious
Ruornil -- Lazy, Pious, Prudent, Temperate, Suspicious
Sera -- Energetic, Selfish, Deceitful, Worldly, Suspicious
Avani -- Generous, Honest, Just, Modest, Prudent
Eloele -- Lazy, Selfish, Deceitful, Suspicious, Cowardly
Laerme -- Lustful, Vengeful, Proud, Worldly, Indulgent
Kriesha -- Vengeful, Selfish, Arbitrary, Cruel, Suspicious
Belinik -- Vengeful, Cruel, Proud, Reckless, Valorous
Dcolby
05-15-2007, 07:40 PM
Thanx for the List...
I was basing my Virtues and Vices off a mixture of Roman and Western European examples to try and get an Anuirean feel.
Mercy VS Cruelty
Dignity (Selfworth/Pride) vs Unseemliness
Tenacity VS Cowardice
Respectability (Image) VS Indecency
Learning VS Ignorance
Industriousness VS Laziness
Self Control VS Decadence
Piety VS Impiety
Prudence VS Recklessness
Truthfulness VS Dishonesty
Frugalness VS Spendthrift
Duty VS Disloyalty
Of course Roman Mercy and Christian mercy concepts are very very different, but I think I have a good set of Anuirean core traits both good and bad.
kgauck
05-15-2007, 08:15 PM
In LUG's Star Trek RPG, there were five core reputation areas, and each major affiliation (Federation, Romulan, Klingon, &c) had three that were required to make your next promotion.
Whenever discussing values, I think we need to focus on a combination of culture (Anuirean, Rjurik, Khinasi, Brecht, Vos, Dwarf, Elf, &c) and religion.
Ultimatly, a really cool reputation system would be as broad as the skill system, and probabaly like LUG's Star Trek, each culture would value a different set of reputation values, so that a character might have high reputation (be well known) but would be respected and admired differently depening on which culture he encounters.
A nice list of admired cultural values makes it easier to build a character that will be admired, or select the culture that matches the way you intend to play your character.
Autarkis
05-16-2007, 12:41 AM
Boeruine:
The books are silent on the matter of why Boeruine rebelled - as you would expect from books that are heroic fantasy not political thrillers - as such they makes no statement for or against there being reasons for the rebellion or whether or not those reasons were justified. You could equally well argue over whether tailors made clothes, cobbler made boots, etc - they were not relevant to the story and so were not mentioned, but that does not mean that there were no cobblers, tailors, etc. I would note also that the descriptions of Arwyn and his character argue against him simply being a power junky - he is a firm, blunt, but mostly fair figure from recollection not some monomaniac monster (his son on the other hand...)
The only way you can argue that Boeruine had no motive for the crown beyond pure greed is to choose not to consider what would have caused him and a number of allies to try and take the throne - Boeruine hardly fights alone and the other nobles do not immediately flock to the throne to oppose him, indicating that the empire was very fragmented before the rebellion - Boeruine could easily have thought the child-Michael (or whoever stood as regent for him) incapable of reforging the empire and seen himself as the only person strong enough the take the role forcing him to claim the throne in order to protect the empire. If you want to play a political game, where the actions of Boeruine will echo down the generations and impact the current setting, you need to consider the why's in order to properly assess the current position - is Michael seen as a hero or as a fool? Was Boeruine the fiend whose blind ambition led to the destruction of the empire or the tragic hero who so nearly saved it from annihilation?
The books do state what Boeruine's motives are. The Chamberlain (the father, not the son), the General, and Prince Fhilereane (to name a few, I don't want to go through the entire novel and footnote everyone) are very clear that he is a man who wishes power. Take into account that he allied with the Gorgon (not known to his allies) and he is a fiend lead by blind ambition.
There is no indication that he has a grievance with Hadrian except for the fact that when Hadrian dies, he won't be Emperor. His allies sided with him because he told them Michael was dead, and if Michael was dead he would be in the right and the Chamberlain opposing his getting the throne was in the wrong. That is why he had allies, and the Chamberlain had the IC (Avanil then Diemed joined after Michael re-surfaced.) He had the perfect plan to take back the throne. The fact that Michael resurfaced and was still alive was explained to his allies that obviously that wasn't Michael and a plot by the Sidhe (and since most of the realms bordered the Manslayer who sided with Boeruine, not something they wouldn't believe).
We know this. Nothing in the Iron Throne lends to the theory that there is a grievance. There is indicators that it was blind ambition, a man who was going to inherit the throne until Michael was born. I guess if he had a grievance it would be Michael's birth.
And for those fighting against the curse of Azrai, it is pointed out in Book Regency it couldn't be ignored, just slow down the inevitable. It even mentions that there is no one know who has been able to fight off its effects forever. The examples you give will eventually turn, and there is no evidence that Tara is "good" (no stats given) and the PS states she could potentially have another reason and it could be a trick by the Gorgon.
Beruin
05-16-2007, 01:50 AM
In regards to alignment again, I am working on a set of Virtues and Vices that players would selectfrom a master list of about 12 virtues and 12 vices that would help you define your personality when building the the characters persona.
I really like this idea as a help for defining characters/cultures, though I'm not too sure this can really replace alignment rules-wise without seriously reworking the relevant game mechanics. I'm also not very fond of the way D&D handles alignment and wholeheartedly agree with ryancaveney:
Indeed, given that the prototypical D&D campaign is dungeon crawling, which is properly defined as breaking into other sentient beings' homes, killing them, and stealing their possessions, all on the flimsy excuse that they are inherently "evil", is the best example ever invented of Chaotic Evil behavior. =) I'm perfectly serious -- I just think the irony is hilarious, too.
Nevertheless, I shied away from completely removing alignment, if only for the fact that quite a lot of rules make use of it. I already had allowed a PC in my group to take Paladin levels - giving me quite a lot of headaches because she used detect evil way too often for my taste - and removing alignment would mean seriously reworking her character against her will, so this was out.
I guess in this regard a system of vices and virtues does not really help. Against whom can a paladin of Haelyn use his smite ability? Against the cruel, the liars, the cowards and the selfish? How do you define this?
I then thought about making alignment relative to the view of the beholder, e.g. two paladins from rival churches would detect each other as evil and could smite each other, but I discarded this idea as too vague and also as blurring the line between essential "normal" people and "pure evil" even more than the standard system.
In the end, what helped was adapting a system from Monte Cook's Book of Hallowed Might. Basically, the neutral alignment element is more or less discarded except for animals and maybe a few extraordinary people and all other alignment elements are scaled from 1 to 10, with examples given what each number implies.
For instance, a merchant with an alignment of L4E2 respects authority figures and has a deep respect for the law, even if it doesn't suit him (e.g. he willingly pays his taxes), but he is also quite selfish and looks for his own gain even if this harms others. But even though he'll demand an inflated price for his goods if he can get away with it he still shies away from actively injuring or even killing others. For game purposes, he is considered lawful neutral (Monte Cook's system only regards a rating of 1 as neutral, but I wanted to broaden the grey area a bit). Characters with alignment requirements must at least choose a rating of 3 for the relevant alignment element.
Using this system really helped me to show my players that evil does not always mean the same thing and it also allowed me to construct villains who were just a bit evil without making them a target for the priest and the paladin, but these PCs could still use their abilities to good effect against undead, evil mages and other thoroughly evil antagonists.
I believe a scale like this would also be useful in conjunction with a system of vices and virtues.
ShadowMoon
05-16-2007, 02:31 AM
You could always replace Paladin's Detect Evil, with Detect Taint...
With Detect Taint, Paladin can reveal presence of a curse, possession, negative energy, really evil aura.
You can also Give a Paladin Detect Innocence, which would reveal presence of pure souls, blessed areas, and/or relics.
Smite Evil wouldn't do extra damage to normally evil creatures, unless they are pure evil (demons), or creatures powered by negative energy (undead).
Further You can expand Turn Undead option to be able to damage and banish Outsiders; free someone from possession, even damage possessor; suspend curses for a certain duration, even remove them; and demoralize souls lured to darkness, or even atone them. Maybe change its name into Banish or Exorcism...
ConjurerDragon
05-16-2007, 03:15 PM
ShadowMoon schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3700
> ShadowMoon wrote:
> You could always replace Paladin`s Detect Evil, with Detect Taint...
>
> With Detect Taint, Paladin can reveal presence of a curse, possession, negative energy, really evil presence.
>
> You can also Give a Paladin Detect Innocence, which would reveal presence of pure souls, blessed areas, and/or relics.
>
> Smite Evil wouldn`t do extra damage to normally evil creatures, unless they r pure evil (demons), or creatures powered by negative energy (undead).
>
> Further You can expand Turn Undead option to be able to damage and banish Outsiders, free someone from possession, even damage possessor, suspend curses for a certain duration, even remove them, and atone souls lured to darkness.
>
Isn?t Sense Motive Skill already in the core books used as a method to
detect possesion of someone? Why then replace Detect Evil with something
covered by an existing skill?
ShadowMoon
05-16-2007, 03:28 PM
Isn?t Sense Motive Skill already in the core books used as a method to
detect possesion of someone? Why then replace Detect Evil with something
covered by an existing skill?
Because it is stupid to be able to use Sense Motive to detect if someone is under some magical/unnatural influence. If that person is acting strange than it is acting strange and all can see it and try to understand why, but to be able to tell for sure that it is under some enchantment, thats ridiculous.
EDIT: So Rogue would detect possession easier and alot sooner than a Priest? Awww... ><;
ConjurerDragon
05-16-2007, 03:30 PM
ryancaveney schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3700
> ryancaveney wrote:
> ...
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> I am working on a set of Virtues and Vices that players would select... Not quite a robbery from Pendragon as the list would be role playing aids not a dice mechanic.
> -----------------------------
>
> Allow me to quote myself from four years ago, quoting myself from even earlier than that (I have not been able to find the post from the archives which I was then quoting...)
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Haelyn -- Honest, Just, Merciful, Temperate, Valorous
> Erik -- Energetic, Generous, Prudent, Temperate, Suspicious
> Cuiraecen -- Energetic, Proud, Reckless, Indulgent, Valorous
> Nesirie -- Forgiving, Generous, Arbitrary, Merciful, Pious
> Ruornil -- Lazy, Pious, Prudent, Temperate, Suspicious
> Sera -- Energetic, Selfish, Deceitful, Worldly, Suspicious
> Avani -- Generous, Honest, Just, Modest, Prudent
> Eloele -- Lazy, Selfish, Deceitful, Suspicious, Cowardly
> Laerme -- Lustful, Vengeful, Proud, Worldly, Indulgent
> Kriesha -- Vengeful, Selfish, Arbitrary, Cruel, Suspicious
> Belinik -- Vengeful, Cruel, Proud, Reckless, Valorous
>
Haelyn seems to have not enough negative traits and some of the dark
gods few "good" abilities for their followers - how about
"overconfident"? For a god whose predecessors signature ability is
COURAGE it would seem fitting. e.g. Michael Roele fearing nothing and
taking risks because of it.
Cuiraceen could perhaps have "violent".
As the godess of the sea Nesierie ought to be perhaps a bit unpredictable.
and Beleink "strong"
Dcolby
05-16-2007, 04:36 PM
Still working on it of course but for now these are the Virtues I have assigned (from my previous list) to the Anuirean Deities.
AVANI: Piety, Duty, Prudence, Learning, Respectability, and Dignity.
BELINIK: Piety, Cruelty, Tenacity, Recklessness, Dignity (Pride), and Decadence.
CUIRAECEN: Piety, Tenacity, Recklessness, Dignity (pride), Respectabilty, and Duty.
ELOELE: Piety, Dishonesty, Prudence, Laziness, Learning, and Respectability.
ERIK: Piety, Frugalness, Industriousness, Dignity, Self Control, and Learning.
HAELYN: Piety, Tenacity, Dignity (Pride), Respectability, Prudence, and Duty.
KRIESHA: Piety, Duty (To Kriesha), Cruelty, Prudence, Tenacity, and Dishonesty.
LAERME: Piety, Learning, Mercy, Prudence, Decadence, and Industriousness.
NESRIE: Piety, Mercy, Duty, Truthfulness, Prudence, and Dignity.
RUORNIL: Piety, Learning, Tenacity, Dignity, Industriousness, and Prudence.
SERA: Piety, Industriousness, Decadence, Frugalness, Prudence, and Dishonesty.
This is a list for Clerics etc and so all the Virtues include Piety at least in regards to the Deity of choice.
Some of them include () comments which indicate a modifier to what is otherwise a Virtue that has a darkerside rendering it mainly a vice. Such as Dignity (Pride).
Some might seem contrary, such as SERA having both Decadence and frugalness. In the system I am working on the Cleric would only be required to have 5 of the 6 traits compose the seven virtues/vices all characters would require.So he/she could have one and not the other. Of course they could also very simply have a desire for debauchey and excess, but on someone elses dime.
kgauck
05-16-2007, 05:11 PM
Because I turn as many spells into skill modifiers as I can, Detect Evil is just a base +5 and +1/caster level modifier to Sense Motive.
Some priests may not be interested in people's motives, but priests representing aspects of law and honesty will inclined to max out their Sense Motive skill in any event.
ShadowMoon
05-16-2007, 05:27 PM
In my campaign I use similar method presented in Ravenloft (Sword & Sorcery)... So Alignment is divided on ethical (Chaos/Order) and moralty (Evil/Good) axis, and You can only detect ethical part of the spectre. Moral part is deep withing one's subconsciousness, so person in question won't probably know his moralty attitude.
But I further the Alignment system with Love, Belief, Loyalty, and Hatred focuses, and methodology like Eastern, Western, Stoic, and Fanatism.
PS: And yes, I have Lawful Evil Paladins of Haelyn if some might wonder.
Example:
Armedien Morell
Warrior 02 / Paladin of Haelyn 01
Lawful Evil
Love: Self, Aleanne (his daughter).
Belief: Haelyn's creed (Ortodox Imperial Temple), Weakness invites sinful deeds.
Loyalty: Diemed, Ortodox Imperial Temple.
Hatred: Belinik, Awnsheghlien.
Methodology: Western.
Thelandrin
05-16-2007, 05:54 PM
Because I turn as many spells into skill modifiers as I can, Detect Evil is just a base +5 and +1/caster level modifier to Sense Motive.
Some priests may not be interested in people's motives, but priests representing aspects of law and honesty will inclined to max out their Sense Motive skill in any event.
So paladins have a permanent +5 modifier to Sense Motive, which starts increasing by half their class level from 4th-level or so?
Dcolby
05-16-2007, 06:23 PM
You can only detect ethical part of the spectre. Moral part is deep withing one's subconsciousness, so person in question won't probably know his moralty attitude.
In an alignment driven Campaign I once ran there was a player whose character was Lawful Evil and given of course to some sneaky attempts at party manipulation and underhanded dealings, in addition to some just snake oil salesman like stuff when he could get away with it.
It was likely some of the best roleplaying I have seen from a player who reacted with shock whenever fellow party members would make sure someone else always served watch with him. Officials and townsfolk who knew of him would shun or cower from him depending on their abilities etc.
He explained it quite well as
"Of course I am shocked and dismayed, I don't think I'm evil!" ;)
Jaleela
05-16-2007, 07:28 PM
This is a much bigger problem! A society with common priestly magic is NOT pre-industrial in a large number of important ways. Military life changes drastically, too: food creation and preservation spells render sieges impossible -- you must take castles by assault, because the defenders will never succumb to starvation or disease. Mages who fly and cast fireballs make conventional armies nearly obsolete, anyway. A society with lots of magic is in many ways similar to a highly technological one, and it is these effects of the magic system which have never been properly considered. A social system based on non-spellcasting rulers with medieval armies and medieval castles simply cannot survive D&D magic. To keep the right flavor, drastic changes to the magic system are necessary to even attain some degree of suspension of disbelief.
Universal access to the priest class is in fact the single biggest demographic headache possible: there simply must be some mechanism which prevents people joining up, because otherwise every single peasant would be insane not to take levels in the class, precisely in order to gain access to the magic you describe. My solution in birthright is to make the same distinction between blooded and non-blooded priests as is made between blooded wizards and non-blooded magicians. IMC, you have to have a bloodline to be able to cure wounds or disease or any of the standard D&D cleric stuff -- commoners can cast only illusion and divination, and the stat requirements for being able to do even that are tightened significantly.
Well, I disagree. Firstly, Birthright by description of the core rules is a low magic campaign - the magic available is potentially much more potent, to a few individuals, but standard magic is rare and expensive. Also, magic usuer by nature as described in the campaign setting, and throughout D&D during its various incarnations are not generally combative, their motivating factor is personal knowledge, and manipulation of magical forces - they aren't soldiers, and they don't slug it out well on a battlefield.
In our campaign, we limit the number of standard battle mages raisable by a formula related to province levels, and potential battle mages never number into double digits in any province, and aren't available at all in low level provinces. Secondly, we use the core rules for spell ranges, and use real world ranges for ranged weapons, which places magic users into potential lethal range regafrdless of whether they are using standard spells, or battle spells. Another modifying factor we use is that siege weaponry, instead of doleing out a set number of hit points damage, is automatically lethal or crippling if it strikes a target ('heros' and PC's get a shot to live, basically, but they are out of the battle if hit.) This mostly is only a factor in siege warfare.
Regarding clerical magic, we limit that as well, but not in the way you envision. According to all the writing on the subject concerning Birthright by Rich Baker, clerical magic was a *huge* factor in humans gaining the bulk of Cerilia from the elves and others. we limit battlefield clerical magic by having it verbotten for priests to fight co-religionists, regardless of flavor. Haeylinite priests won't kill Haelynites, for instance, and steer clear of internal struggles between the duchies.
The DO come out to fight against the big, bad Awghnsheglien (sp), non-humans, and humans whos religions are antithetical to their own. Thus Haelyn is pleased when priests heal warriors on the battlefield, or his believers in the village, but is highly displeased if a priest uses his magic to kill fellow believers.
We like this feel of play. It makes magic wonderous instead of commonplace, it gives the common person a reason to have strong belief, and gives the temples appropriate power. Your milage can, and obviously does vary. ;)
kgauck
05-16-2007, 08:50 PM
So paladins have a permanent +5 modifier to Sense Motive, which starts increasing by half their class level from 4th-level or so?
Yes. But only for the purpose of sensing sinister motives. It doesn't work for routine lying or countering Bluff attempts, unless the other guy says "I want to feed the children" and he really intends to enslave the children.
ryancaveney
05-16-2007, 09:19 PM
Nevertheless, I shied away from completely removing alignment, if only for the fact that quite a lot of rules make use of it. I already had allowed a PC in my group to take Paladin levels - giving me quite a lot of headaches because she used detect evil way too often for my taste
One of the reasons I am especially keen on getting rid of alignment in BR is that it allows me to junk a lot of rules that interact very badly with a campaign setting based heavily on political intrigue. So, forcing the consequent elimination of those rules isn't a bug, it's a feature. =)
and removing alignment would mean seriously reworking her character against her will, so this was out. I guess in this regard a system of vices and virtues does not really help.
Well, what to her is a core character concept? That she has a very rigid moral code? That she demands everyone else adhere to it as well? That she can magically detect or especially harm people who wish her ill? None of these things require that there be a specific alignment system.
Against whom can a paladin of Haelyn use his smite ability? Against the cruel, the liars, the cowards and the selfish? How do you define this?
If you're using a Pendragonesque system in which each person has a numerical rating in various personality characteristics, which change one way or another as they make various choices in their lives, it's really very easy: "you can smite anyone who has a total score of at least X in those traits opposite the ones you are required to have". That works perfectly for paladins of opposing or orthogonal faiths, too.
I then thought about making alignment relative to the view of the beholder, e.g. two paladins from rival churches would detect each other as evil and could smite each other, but I discarded this idea as too vague and also as blurring the line between essential "normal" people and "pure evil" even more than the standard system.
I played in a game like this once: to the clerics of the healing god, the clerics of the battle god detected as evil, and vice versa, even though they would have been considered LG/NG and LG/LN in standard D&D alignment. We had both in the party, and it worked pretty well; lots of amusing theological roleplaying. My character was a hunting god pragmatist, who thought both sides were insane. =)
Ryan
ryancaveney
05-16-2007, 09:21 PM
unless the other guy says "I want to feed the children" and he really intends to enslave the children.
But if he really means "I want to feed the children... to the Gorgon", then he's fine because everything he said is true. =)
Ryan
kgauck
05-16-2007, 09:33 PM
Wait, that's an episode of Twilight Zone.
ryancaveney
05-16-2007, 09:35 PM
Firstly, Birthright by description of the core rules is a low magic campaign - the magic available is potentially much more potent, to a few individuals, but standard magic is rare and expensive.
Well, yes, exactly. Which is why I feel that standard D&D rules have to be changed drastically, in order to keep the proper feel for the setting. There has to be something keeping everyone from picking up a few priest levels, or the quality of life improvement it offers to the average person would be too great to miss. Hence my desire to restrict priests just as much as wizards are.
In our campaign, we limit the number of standard battle mages raisable by a formula related to province levels, and potential battle mages never number into double digits in any province, and aren't available at all in low level provinces.
So, what's a battle mage? A 9th-level wizard can cast Fly, Improved Invisibility, and Cloudkill. Making items (wands, especially) of these spells allows that one person to destroy any conventional army in just a minute or two, with no conventional defense possible. You have to have your own equivalent mage, or you are doomed.
Secondly, we use the core rules for spell ranges, and use real world ranges for ranged weapons, which places magic users into potential lethal range regafrdless of whether they are using standard spells, or battle spells.
Not if they are flying directly above you. =) Or control the winds between you.
Another modifying factor we use is that siege weaponry, instead of doleing out a set number of hit points damage, is automatically lethal or crippling if it strikes a target
How does this help? You're not going to manage to hit one specific person with a catapult stone, especially when they have magical defenses.
We like this feel of play. It makes magic wonderous instead of commonplace, it gives the common person a reason to have strong belief, and gives the temples appropriate power.
I like that feel of play, too! What I am after is a way to *protect* it from the assault upon it waged by the PHB rules, unaltered. What I described was something I hate, but that I think is the inherent, inevitable consequence of using the D&D magic system as-is, without inserting a significant number of new rules to limit those drastic, deleterious effects.
Ryan
kgauck
05-16-2007, 10:44 PM
What I am after is a way to *protect* [this style of play] from the assault upon it waged by the PHB rules, unaltered. What I described was something I hate, but that I think is the inherent, inevitable consequence of using the D&D magic system as-is, without inserting a significant number of new rules to limit those drastic, deleterious effects.
I have found some very nice medieval themed suppliments that alter arcane spell lists so that the primary spells available come from the enchantment, illusion, and divination schools. Necromancers are handled seperately.
I had already done work to alter divine caster lists to focus more narrowly on the aspects of the divinity. What I did in 2nd edition was to narrow further, by requiring priests to select an aspect of the god, so that Sera's luck priests and her wealth priests had different spell lists. Likewise Haelyn's war priests, law priests, and priests of rule. In 3rd edition I've been satisfied (not pleased) by using domains and PrC's for this purpose.
Jaleela
05-16-2007, 10:48 PM
Well, a great restrictor for the priesthood would be a level of literacy - your average peasant isn't going to be literate, and isn't going to have access to a means of becoming literate. Heck, make a literacy in ancient Andu a requirement, as literacy in Latin was a requirement for Medieval priesthood.
Regardless, having it forbidden for priests to fight co-religionists (or immediate loss of spells, as a penalty from an unhappy god) takes care of the problem instantly. Allowing a priest to cure an injury of a parishoner who laid open their leg with an axe chopping wood is a small miricle that strengthens faith, and hardly unbalances the game. Better yet, have a common priest only able to access small curative miracles, and nothing more.
One also should look to the core rules - stopping a plauge in it's tracks is historically how the Impregnable Heart of Haelyn became an intregal part of the county of Ilien, in the official domain sourcebook. It also is in the spirit of what Rich Baker wrote in writing out the basic history of the human migration to Cerilia.
A battle mage in our campaign is merely a mage willing to aide his feudal lord on a battlefield, and not an indicator of level. Most such persons in our game are mid level at most, and tey are rarities, not commonplace.
Of course, you are arguing this on a forum where people are advocating armies of constructs as logical and reasonable game occurances - never would happen in our campaign, as it would be far too costly, nevermind the programing limitations of constructs and their inability to quickly be altered in programing to face a new situation. The horde of undead also argued for is the very thing that would see a large number of Priests and Knights of Haelyn, Avani, and what have you turn out to oppose as well. :)
AndrewTall
05-16-2007, 11:36 PM
Regardless, having it forbidden for priests to fight co-religionists (or immediate loss of spells, as a penalty from an unhappy god) takes care of the problem instantly. Allowing a priest to cure an injury of a parishoner who laid open their leg with an axe chopping wood is a small miricle that strengthens faith, and hardly unbalances the game. Better yet, have a common priest only able to access small curative miracles, and nothing more.
:)
Actually healing is far more unbalancing than a few battle spells - if no child dies of fever, lost limbs are regrown, battered soldiers healded overnight, etc, etc, than the world becomes a very different place - even in the modern world most soldiers died from fever not weapons - look at the Crimea. If one realm has just a hundred people who can cast 1-3 cure light wounds (1 level of priest and slightly above average wisdom) then they can fully heal 2-3 units in a few hours - giving a major tactical advantage.
To say nothing of the usefulness of create food and drink in a seige...
While the rare powerful spells are nice, they are rare enough not to have much impact aside from amongst the nobility who can afford them - it's the dirt cheap L1-2 spells that can be learned en masse if people take a few levels of priest that really change the way that the world functions.
That's why I restricted priest numbers - if only scions / elves / etc can cast priestly magic (I let Taelinir cast clerical magic of a druidic sort) then you avoid the issue of how a medieval socety is changed by the removal of famine, plague, and death in child birth and childhood...
kgauck
05-17-2007, 12:21 AM
If only scions / elves / etc can cast priestly magic then you avoid the issue of how a medieval socety is changed by the removal of famine, plague, and death in child birth and childhood...
The same thing happens if you make healing spells a skill bonus modifier. A reasonable number of low level priests can aleviate some minor problems, but famines will continue, plagues occur, and child birth and infant mortality remain significant.
I also like to see serious healing impact the character over time as well. For example, I've had imposed temporary WIS damage to poison victims based on the potency of poison that was neutralized. Basicaly, the character is delerious while he detox's. I've imposed serious temp CON damage from full out heal spells, to impose some rest period after serious injury.
Generally players don't go for broke in healing, and try and leave about as many wound points to recover naturally as they will lose in ability damage, because both will recover simultaneously. Healing magic, then can be seen in game terms, part healing, part shifting damage from one score, often wounds, to an ability score, to speed healing, rather than casting a spell and going on with the mission.
Dcolby
05-17-2007, 12:34 AM
Perhaps it is a simple matter of faith and selection.
Limiting the number of priests in Birthright or any D&D setting can be easy enough.
1. Very few people have the outright commitment of faith to be favored by their Deity with "Miracles" minor or major to begin with.
2. Not every scribe, acolyte, cloistered priest, confessor, repentent monk, or devoted templar is as favored by his or her Deity as equaly as others either.
If this seems somewhat arbitrary well...heck yeah!
Classical Mythology is filled with people that the Gods love for one reason or another. In some circumstances for fairly petty reasons, (The apple of Discord and the choice of Paris anyone?) in fact Polytheistic faiths tend to assign very human traits to their Gods.
It can also provide great Roleplaying hooks for those Devoted Priests wishing to remain in a Gods' good graces.
If a D.M. was feeling cruel that is...:rolleyes:
ryancaveney
05-17-2007, 12:57 AM
Actually healing is far more unbalancing than a few battle spells - if no child dies of fever, lost limbs are regrown, battered soldiers healded overnight, etc, etc, than the world becomes a very different place... it's the dirt cheap L1-2 spells that can be learned en masse if people take a few levels of priest that really change the way that the world functions.
Exactly so! You can't have a medieval world if you keep those spells commonplace.
The same thing happens if you make healing spells a skill bonus modifier. A reasonable number of low level priests can aleviate some minor problems, but famines will continue, plagues occur, and child birth and infant mortality remain significant.
This is also a fine plan. Either the spells must be made much less powerful, or the people who cast them must be made much less numerous. Or both, really.
Ryan
Beruin
05-17-2007, 01:42 AM
One of the reasons I am especially keen on getting rid of alignment in BR is that it allows me to junk a lot of rules that interact very badly with a campaign setting based heavily on political intrigue. So, forcing the consequent elimination of those rules isn't a bug, it's a feature. =)
I agree in general, but frankly I hadn't considered all of the potential problems when allowing my player to take levels as a paladin (she started out as a fighter). The problem didn't really come up before - I believe that the cleric among my players has never ever used a detect evil spell even once. Well, I guess it's my fault for not really thinking it through, then.
Nevertheless, I still like the general idea behind the alignment-related rules, i.e. being able to detect evil auras in items, places or creatures, being able to ward off evil, being overwhelmed by a very strong evil aura etc. These things are a staple of fantasy literature/games I would like to keep. The problem is that with the rules as written, they are virtually no grey areas - when nearly every antagonist starting with a lowly goblin is defined as evil, these abilities become potentially game-breaking.
Well, what to her is a core character concept? That she has a very rigid moral code? That she demands everyone else adhere to it as well? That she can magically detect or especially harm people who wish her ill? None of these things require that there be a specific alignment system.
Well, I guess her character concept wasn't really that important in this regard, to her it was more a player vs DM thing. I introduced the paladin's player to roleplaying, she had never played before and in a way she started out as I did (though I was much younger back then) as a hack'n slasher or powergamer. Realism, the believability of the setting and "mature" roleplaying (as in really acting her part) were and to a certain extent still are less of a concern to her. As a consequence, she regarded her detect evil abiltiy as a useful tool to be routinely used whenever she met a NPC, regardless of the social situation. That of course really runs contrary to the setting, but when I tried to talk this through with her, she at first seemed to think I was trying to limit a legitimate and 'official' character ability simply to be better able to thwart my players.
In short, taking away an ability after not liking what the player did with it would have made me an "unfair" DM. Well, seems like I had to learn the hard way that it's easier by far to ban something beforehand than to remove it later after it has already been introduced. I could have forged ahead regardless, but chose to compromise instead. By scaling alignment I broadened they grey area a bit, slightly limiting the usefulness of alignment related abilities. More important however was that my player learned that not all evil is the same and that a slight evil aura might not necessarily imply something more sinister than a dishonest shopkeeper.
If you're using a Pendragonesque system in which each person has a numerical rating in various personality characteristics, which change one way or another as they make various choices in their lives, it's really very easy: "you can smite anyone who has a total score of at least X in those traits opposite the ones you are required to have". That works perfectly for paladins of opposing or orthogonal faiths, too.
Sounds good, similar to scaling alignment. Seems I should reread my old Pendragon rules-;)
I played in a game like this once: to the clerics of the healing god, the clerics of the battle god detected as evil, and vice versa, even though they would have been considered LG/NG and LG/LN in standard D&D alignment. We had both in the party, and it worked pretty well; lots of amusing theological roleplaying. My character was a hunting god pragmatist, who thought both sides were insane. =)
Sounds fun and I still like this idea, but I must say I was reluctant to introduce this into an ongoing campaign, because I did not really feel able to assess how this would work out and how complicated it could possibly get.
Sorontar
05-17-2007, 02:34 AM
Quick (well actually verbose) example of Detect Evil in our campaign and how our dynamic alignment system works.
My Druid is facing some mist. He wants to know if the "Awnshegh" the party has been battling is still in there, so he tries Detect Evil. Two problems: 1) He doesn't know if the Awnie is actually evil (but she did ambush the party after all) 2) a party member is also in the cloud. Unbeknownst to the characters, the party member was recently blooded with Azrai bloodline. He was already Chaotic Neutral (or something similar) and now has Chaotic evil or Neutral Evil habits. So what did Detect Evil show the Druid?
The answer is nothing. While DM Doyle knows exactly why, I suspect that there were two reasons: 1) The Awnie was no longer there and actually wasn't an Awnie anyway (just a mage who like shapeshifting) 2) The party member was not having evil thoughts at the time. He was more interested in self and party preservation, which is a Neutral/Good approach to life.
So our Detect Evil tends to look at the aura of the moment, rather than the aura of the character. This obviously limits its usage, but think of it like Detect Lie/Discern Lies. That spell only tells you when mistruths are said, not that someone is a pathological liar or is trying to mislead you by leaving out information. If the party member had been thinking evil thoughts, Detect Evil might have identified his presence in the mist.
Sorontar
ps. Isn't this getting a bit off-topic for Avanil? How about someone shift some of these posts to a new Alignment or Paladin based thread?
geeman
05-17-2007, 02:49 AM
At 11:23 AM 5/16/2007, Dcolby wrote:
> "Of course I am shocked and dismayed, I don`t think I`m evil!" ;)
That`s a good example of role-playing, but one should bear in mind
that in the D&D (and BR) universe good and evil are palpable
things--at least, by magic. Good/evil and law/chaos can be detected,
protected against and can deny an individual the use of particular
magics. Don`t get me wrong, I`m all for an expansion into a more
useful system of portraying character personality, association and
morality, but keep in mind that the alignment system in D&D is
extrinsic as well as intrinsic.
Gary
ryancaveney
05-17-2007, 03:41 AM
Haelyn seems to have not enough negative traits and some of the dark gods few "good" abilities for their followers
Sorry, there's some context missing.
These personality traits were all chosen from a specific list which come from the Pendragon RPG, by Greg Stafford. Quoting from that rulebook, "Traits are dualistic personality factors. A trait and its opposite both exist in every individual. They define a person's feelings and tendencies. Pendragon has thirteen pairs of personality traits which are important. Characters certainly display other traits, but those listed are the ones critical to the Arthurian literature of the game." Each trait is given a numerical score; scores in pairs of opposites are positive numbers which sum to twenty, except in truly exceptional individuals (Lancelot has Valorous 25/Cowardly 0, and King Arthur has Merciful 21/Cruel 0).
The list of opposed pairs is:
Chaste / Lustful
Energetic / Lazy
Forgiving / Vengeful
Generous / Selfish
Honest / Deceitful
Modest / Proud
Just / Arbitrary
Trusting / Suspicious
Merciful / Cruel
Pious / Worldly
Prudent / Reckless
Temperate / Indulgent
Valorous / Cowardly
Actions in the game which examplify those traits cause them to (possibly) increase; for example, "when someone acts jealous, they [may increase] their Suspicious." The reason I made lists for each god is that the power available for spellcasting in Pendragon is determined by the degree to which the caster's own personality accords with the traits their god values, encourages and emphasizes. Each religion (diety in a BR context) is associated with the five (of the 26) personality traits which describe how well each person is following the teachings of that faith.
It is important to note that not all these words mean precisely what one might think at first glance. For example, the place where dcolby and I clearly disagree is the interpretation of Pious/Worldly. He has Pious listed for every cleric, because the dictionary definition is "having or showing a dutiful spirit of reverence for a diety or an earnest wish to fulfill religious obligations." However, as I read the the Pendragon rules, "Pious... should be contrasted with Worship, which is an action rather than a belief... Worldly... might just indicate great pleasure in mundane... delights such as fine clothes, comfortable furnishings, good music and poetry, and the best company. Do not confuse Worldly with Indulgent; the two often go hand-in-hand, but they are not the same." A high Pious score is appropriate for people who are more concerned with ideas than physical things; it fits some philosophers and mathematicians far better than it fits many priests. A high Worldly score, seen this way, is very clearly required by the goddesses Sera and Laerme, and at least encouraged by Eloele, Cuiraecen and Belinik. However, I did not list it for the last three because I don't see it as in their top five. Piety, in the sense of "doing what your god wants" means having a *low* Pious score in Pendragon rules, if your god thinks that parties are more interesting than praying (or, indeed, a *form* of praying). Dionysius is an obvious classical example of a god for whom piety consists in being as close to Pious 0 / Worldly 20 as possible.
My response to "not enough negative" vs. "few good" is twofold. One, Haelyn, Avani and company are supposed to be the heroes while Belinik and Kriesha are supposed to be the villains, so that difference is entirely appropriate. Two, and much more interesting in my opinion, is that what counts as negative or positive depends on your god's moral system. For example, Sera and Erik both teach that people should work hard, so they list Energetic. However, Erik teaches that you should work for the good of the community while Sera teaches that you should keep your profits for your own use; therefore, Erik lists Generous while Sera lists Selfish, which are opposites. Eloele also approves of Selfish, but prefers Lazy to Energetic, since it is better to have other people do the hard work for you, and then take the results from them. Similarly, Haelyn and Cuiraecen both demand that worshippers be Valorous, but I listed Cuiraecen as wanting his worshippers to be Indulgent ("takes pleasure in food and drink, both in quality and in quantity") but Haelyn as wanting his to be the opposite, Temperate ("takes only what he needs... is frugal and abstains from excess") because Haelyn is the god of rulership, an important part of which is careful husbanding of resources, while Cuiraecen is a "party on, dude!" kind of guy.
This is my favorite part about this system: religions which hate each other can endorse similar behaviors, and close allies can endorse some (but not all, or the alliance will not last) opposing ones. There is also room for some religions to be completely nonintersecting; for example, as I've defined them, whether your personality follows or opposes what Laerme approves bears no relationship to whether your personality follows or opposes what Eloele approves.
how about "overconfident"? For a god whose predecessors signature ability is COURAGE it would seem fitting. e.g. Michael Roele fearing nothing and
taking risks because of it.
There are a couple of responses to this within the Pendragon system. One is that Prudent/Reckless is a separate trait pair from Valorous/Cowardly, so everybody has independent scores in both pairs. Reckless is acting before thinking; Valorous is being willing to face danger. If you act recklessly enough, valor may not even come into it, because you've completed the action before you realize it was dangerous enough to bother being brave about.
The other answer is that since every trait pair is assigned numerical values, "slightly confident", "very confident" and "overconfident" can be expressed simply by putting the right numbers in the slots. That is, Valorous 10 / Cowardly 10 is a person whose bravery level is utterly typical and unremarkable. Someone who is Valorous 15 / Cowardly 5 is mostly brave and usually is willing to face moderate danger. Someone who is Valorous 20 / Cowardly 0 almost never shows fear, even when retreat would be a better idea -- especially if they also are more Reckless than Prudent.
A non-Pendragon, within-BR response is to say that by the available record of his actions, Michael Roele was a rather better example of the kind of behavior Cuiraecen endorses, than that approved by Haelyn.
Cuiraceen could perhaps have "violent". As the godess of the sea Nesierie ought to be perhaps a bit unpredictable. and Beleink "strong"
To me, simultaneous extremes of Valorous, Reckless, Proud and Energetic as encouraged by my view of Cuiraecen's preferred personality traits, together with military training and armament, strongly imply frequent violence. Unpredictability is precisely why I gave Arbitrary to Nesirie; I'd also give Cruel to most sea gods, but not Nesirie, because of her strong connection with grief. I gave Belinik Valorous, Reckless and Proud, which is 60% identical to Cuiraecen and 40% nonoverlapping; in the way I've set things out, it is actually very easy to be a faithful follower of both gods, because although their worshippers don't like each other, they act somewhat similarly.
Ryan
ShadowMoon
05-17-2007, 08:40 AM
In regard of Healing: My Priests use a variant rule "Slow Healing" from Unearthed Arcana. It means that number of Health a spell could restore is not removed but converted to nolethal. So basically You need double healing. And we use Wounds and Stamina, so mortality is great. And Priests are channelers in my campaign, so they have to select spells much like sorcerers. Since Priests are now spontaneous casters they loose Spontaneous Energy conversion (cure/harm), which means that if a Priest didn't researched/learned/acquired Healing spell, he would be forced to use Heal skill, making Healing Domain very valuable aspect of a Deity. We use Sanity rules too, so not all harm is physical, and since magic is a mysterious force it harms ones Sanity. So many casters lose their mind, invoking/channeling eldritch power, so thats make casters very careful when castin spells.
Slightly off-topic:
We use Read and Write Language (specific) (Int) and Speak Language (specific) (Cha) in our campaign. Most people are illiterate. Speak Language (Native), or dominant culture language is a class skill for characters. Bards are only one that have all languages (taken separately) as class skills. So no free languages for anyone. Maximum languages that one can know how to speak is Native + Cha bonus. Max Read & Write is Int bonus. After that, one would need to take a Feat that can allow one more Language (both Read & Write, and Speak). Someone mentioned literacy as a possibile requirement for a Priest, well put Read & Write Language (Native) 2-4 and Speak Language (Native) 2-4, and add Celestial or Infernal, and You'll see that there will be not many Priests around.
irdeggman
05-17-2007, 09:57 AM
Well, a great restrictor for the priesthood would be a level of literacy - your average peasant isn't going to be literate, and isn't going to have access to a means of becoming literate. Heck, make a literacy in ancient Andu a requirement, as literacy in Latin was a requirement for Medieval priesthood.
Won't work.
The Vos have no written language at all. {The only culture or race in the setting that doesn't by the way.}
So priests of Belnik and Kreisha would pretty much not exist at all if using literacy as a "prequisite".
Thelandrin
05-17-2007, 10:00 AM
Don't they have a runic spell language that the priests of Belinik and Kriesha could use?
Failing that, they could learn Infernal/Abyssal and use it as their divine tongue.
ShadowMoon
05-17-2007, 10:31 AM
Don't they have a runic spell language that the priests of Belinik and Kriesha could use?
Failing that, they could learn Infernal/Abyssal and use it as their divine tongue.
Those are simple runes for marking someone's property and for simple counting...
But Infernal/Abyssal is needed, at least in my campaign. As wll as Celestial for "light" divine servants.
irdeggman
05-17-2007, 10:34 AM
What was the original topic of this thread?
I read over the first post several times and could make no real sense of it - as to what the "issue" was or what the "discussion topic" was supposed to be.
There were priests long before the empire (remember the "old gods?)
The main focus seems to be on Anuire. There are other lands with other relationships to their primary deity to also consider.
The Vos have a strong relationship between the priesthoods and "rulers", in factin Vosgaard the priesthood is pretty much the "stable" leaders since there is a constant turmoil in Realm Regents due to the always proving your self strong enough to rule cultural concept.
The Rjuirik and their relationship with Erik is also very strong.
Now someone was talking about the relative ease of becomig a "priest" (spellcasting being the main issue).
In 2nd ed Book of Priestcraft (pg 65) had a breakdown of temple holding personnel. The personnel structure was:
Acolytes - 92% being non-priest classed (i.e., non-spellcasters)
Clergy - 52 % being non priest classed
Men at Arms - 100% being non-priest classed.
Since the temples are the place were the most deeply religious hang out it would only be a logical extrapolation that the reast of the polpulation would have much, much lower breakdowns and availability of spellcasting priests.
Remember that the temple is the religious elite so everyone of the staff should, IMO, have some sort of religious aspect to them - unlike the remainder of the population.
Someone else talked about codes of conduct and alignments for clerics.
In 3.5 all clerics are required to have a code of conduct. This is something that many people miss since it is not as specifically detailed as the code of conduct of a paladin.
Ex-Clerics
A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).
ShadowMoon
05-17-2007, 10:38 AM
Well all those topics were in Avanil thread before. And my first post here (moved from there with the rest) was about the Emperor power, about how he didnt have to had lands after to be able to keep Iron Throne.
irdeggman
05-17-2007, 10:38 AM
Don't they have a runic spell language that the priests of Belinik and Kriesha could use?
Failing that, they could learn Infernal/Abyssal and use it as their divine tongue.
No written language for Vos.
They would have to learn some other (non-cultural specific) language to use as a basis - and since Belnick and Kreisha were Vos it would also have to be something that they weren't part of to begin with.
Culturally the Vos also disfavor anything written and view knowledge as a "weakness".
If anything I would go with Knowledge (relgion) as the basis.
ShadowMoon
05-17-2007, 10:39 AM
I would go with Knowledge (relgion) as the basis.
I agree...
Knowledge (Religion) + Knowledge (something relevant)...
Like Knowledge (Nature) for Erik and Kriesha, Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty) for Haelyn, Knowledge (Trade & Goods) for Sera, Knowledge (Arcana) for Avani and Rurnill, etc...
irdeggman
05-17-2007, 10:39 AM
Well all those topics were in Avanil thread before. And my first post here (moved from there with the rest) was about the Emperor power, about how he didnt have to had lands after to be able to keep Iron Throne.
A reference to such would have been useful - since not everyone reads all threads. If not starting there it makes very little sense at all.
ShadowMoon
05-17-2007, 10:43 AM
A reference to such would have been useful - since not everyone reads all threads. If not starting there it makes very little sense at all.
Agreed again, so want me to EDIT first post?
Srry, but I wasn't the one that moved them...
EDIT: I added a disclaimer in the first post...
ConjurerDragon
05-18-2007, 06:00 PM
ryancaveney schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3700
> ryancaveney wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Actually healing is far more unbalancing than a few battle spells - if no child dies of fever, lost limbs are regrown, battered soldiers healded overnight, etc, etc, than the world becomes a very different place... it`s the dirt cheap L1-2 spells that can be learned en masse if people take a few levels of priest that really change the way that the world functions.
> -----------------------------
> Exactly so! You can`t have a medieval world if you keep those spells commonplace.
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> The same thing happens if you make healing spells a skill bonus modifier. A reasonable number of low level priests can aleviate some minor problems, but famines will continue, plagues occur, and child birth and infant mortality remain significant.
> -----------------------------
>
> This is also a fine plan. Either the spells must be made much less powerful, or the people who cast them must be made much less numerous. Or both, really.
>
That is a problem that became truly relevant only with the 3rd edition
of D&D.
2E Birthright had only specialty priests for the gods with certain
minimum ability requirements to become a spellcasting priest -
requirements in part much higher than that of the standard 2E D&D priest
and so not only arcane but also divine magic was much rarer in 2E
Birthright than in 2E D&D.
ConjurerDragon
05-18-2007, 06:30 PM
irdeggman schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3796
> irdeggman wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Well, a great restrictor for the priesthood would be a level of literacy - your average peasant isn`t going to be literate, and isn`t going to have access to a means of becoming literate. Heck, make a literacy in ancient Andu a requirement, as literacy in Latin was a requirement for Medieval priesthood.
> -----------------------------
>
>
> Won`t work.
> The Vos have no written language at all. {The only culture or race in the setting that doesn`t by the way.}
> So priests of Belnik and Kreisha would pretty much not exist at all if using literacy as a "prequisite".
>
"Ancient Andu" would in my opinion only be an example for those under
the cultural influence of the Anuirean Empire.
Even if the Vos as a human subrace have no own written language their
priests could be literate in some ancient language of some of Azrais
former empires. They need to know how to write *something* at least when
they imbue the tattoos of their fighters with divine power. This would
require any commoner or barbarian to actually spend some skill points to
gain literacy and thus would lower the number of spellcasters.
AndrewTall
05-18-2007, 07:37 PM
You can always have the Vos illiterate as a people with only the most holy priests allowed to know the secret runes that bind the language into permanent form - the warriors of other races are weak and effeminate for spending their time reading books but priests are of a different ilk. (Although I suppose priests of Belinik need to be respected for strength that wouldn't be a problem for Kreisha.)
I always saw the Vos runes as more pictograms though than a 'proper' written language. Of course you could say the Vos priests need to learn a chanted version of Vos to replace literacy - the war chants of the priests of Belinik and the low dirges of the winter witch having a similar place as books in another land in passing knowledge of the gods in the Vos society.
kgauck
05-18-2007, 07:57 PM
Minimum ability requirements is an easy thing to add back in, if you want to narrow the pool of potential members of a class.
In addition one has to consider the Adept NPC class, because if you just raise the bar on Clerics (and specialty priests) you might just be shifting the problem to the Adept class.
ryancaveney
05-19-2007, 04:57 PM
In 2nd ed Book of Priestcraft (pg 65) had a breakdown of temple holding personnel. ... Since the temples are the place were the most deeply religious hang out it would only be a logical extrapolation that the reast of the polpulation would have much, much lower breakdowns and availability of spellcasting priests.
I agree that such a situation is the outcome I would like to achieve. However, one of my deep reservations about D&D as a model for world-building is how badly skewed its rules encourage the demography to become. For example, if all you need to cast Cure Light Wounds is to have Wis 11 and one level of Cleric, there is no logical reason that fully half of the human population doesn't take that first level of cleric (and take Healing as a domain) just to gain access to CLW. No matter what your job is, injury is always a worry, and it just makes sense for everyone to choose to acquire some quick and easy healing for themselves, and their friends and families. Therefore, to prevent what we both consider to be a serious demographic problem, I feel the need to add some more rules.
Ryan
Sir Tiamat
05-19-2007, 05:01 PM
I agree that such a situation is the outcome I would like to achieve. However, one of my deep reservations about D&D as a model for world-building is how badly skewed its rules encourage the demography to become. For example, if all you need to cast Cure Light Wounds is to have Wis 11 and one level of Cleric, there is no logical reason that fully half of the human population doesn't take that first level of cleric (and take Healing as a domain) just to gain access to CLW. No matter what your job is, injury is always a worry, and it just makes sense for everyone to choose to acquire some quick and easy healing for themselves, and their friends and families. Therefore, to prevent what we both consider to be a serious demographic problem, I feel the need to add some more rules.
Ryan
I thought the D&D rules considered the PC classes only available to heros and other extraordinary individuals, so PC class levels should be rare.
I would not like to see extra rules, other than the simple observation that true clerics (with divine support) are rare
ryancaveney
05-19-2007, 07:51 PM
That is a problem that became truly relevant only with the 3rd edition of D&D. 2E Birthright had only specialty priests for the gods with certain minimum ability requirements to become a spellcasting priest - requirements in part much higher than that of the standard 2E D&D priest
Yes, that was a much better system, though I do very much like the 3E requirement that max spell level castable equals ability minus ten. Also, the priests were more different from each other, given very different access to spell lists. The reason I went away from this list for four years was that it became nothing but 3E conversion discussions, all the time. If 3E is not the default assumption anymore, I'd be delighted to hear it.
Unfortunately, those ability restrictions still aren't enough. The hardest priesthood for which to qualify is Erik's: the requirement of Wis 12, Con 14 is met by only 6% of people who roll 3d6 six times, but that's still hundreds of thousands of people out of the tens of millions in Cerilia. The easiest priesthood for which to qualify is Nesirie's: the requirement of Wis 12 is met by 3 people in 8 (1 in 4 Brecht or fully half of Anuireans, given the -1 and +1 Wis modifiers). I'm looking for something more like the Ranger qualification rate of 1 in 500 (two 13s and two 14s). The easiest way to do that in BR is actually to impose a bloodline requirement, which knocks you down to 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 immediately, and allows for fine-tuning from there.
Ryan
ryancaveney
05-19-2007, 08:04 PM
I would not like to see extra rules, other than the simple observation that true clerics (with divine support) are rare
This is unacceptable to me as a world-builder. There have to be in-game justifications for all demographic statistics, or I cannot achieve the suspension of disbelief I need to enjoy the game. This is not to say that I want extremely realistic games; indeed, I loathe modern-world RPGs, and adore truly off-the-wall games like Toon. Instead, I want games whose rules are consistent with their setting. There must be some *reason* clerics are rare.
One part of a way to handle it is to say that no one can take levels in any cleric class without having a current cleric to teach them how to do it. But in that case, why would the clerics not teach one level of spellcasting power to everyone who could manage it, especially if there were nasty awnsheghlien as neighbors? My conclusion is that there must therefore be a serious limitation on the number of people who can manage to learn how to be a caster of (even first-level) healing magic. One way I think I'd like to do it is have magical initiation into a priesthood be a dangerous thing, that some significant fraction of applicants do not survive (or at least fail in such a way that they can *never* learn to be spellcasters). Another option is to have the ability to learn to become a spellcaster be very rare -- which is one of the things bloodline is for in BR among wizards, so for parsimony's sake I use it the same way among priests.
Ryan
ShadowMoon
05-19-2007, 08:22 PM
This is unacceptable to me as a world-builder. There have to be in-game justifications for all demographic statistics, or I cannot achieve the suspension of disbelief I need to enjoy the game. This is not to say that I want extremely realistic games; indeed, I loathe modern-world RPGs, and adore truly off-the-wall games like Toon. Instead, I want games whose rules are consistent with their setting. There must be some *reason* clerics are rare.
One part of a way to handle it is to say that no one can take levels in any cleric class without having a current cleric to teach them how to do it. But in that case, why would the clerics not teach one level of spellcasting power to everyone who could manage it, especially if there were nasty awnsheghlien as neighbors? My conclusion is that there must therefore be a serious limitation on the number of people who can manage to learn how to be a caster of (even first-level) healing magic. One way I think I'd like to do it is have magical initiation into a priesthood be a dangerous thing, that some significant fraction of applicants do not survive (or at least fail in such a way that they can *never* learn to be spellcasters). Another option is to have the ability to learn to become a spellcaster be very rare -- which is one of the things bloodline is for in BR among wizards, so for parsimony's sake I use it the same way among priests.
Ryan
Well Cerilian Priests have to have a patron Deity, just add that they have to be thought the theological disciplines and basics of divine rituals, and voila, all of the sudden You have to belong a certain cult or order to be granted such knowledge...
kgauck
05-19-2007, 09:31 PM
The easiest priesthood for which to qualify is Nesirie's: fully half of Anuireans[qualify]. I'm looking for something more like the Ranger qualification rate of 1 in 500. The easiest way to do that in BR is actually to impose a bloodline requirement, which knocks you down to 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 immediately, and allows for fine-tuning from there.
I always like to run these logical questions past the more naturalistic classes, fighter and rogues. So I ask, what if only blooded characters could be fighters, rogues, and nobles, and unblooded characters had to be warriors, rogues, and aristocrats?
Its tempting, but I wonder.
This is unacceptable to me as a world-builder. There have to be in-game justifications for all demographic statistics, or I cannot achieve the suspension of disbelief I need to enjoy the game....
One part of a way to handle it is to have the ability to learn to become a spellcaster be very rare -- which is one of the things bloodline is for in BR among wizards, so for parsimony's sake I use it the same way among priests.
Ryan
You're missing the two most absolute important attributes of being a priest.
Being a true clerist of the gods requires two things: Faith first and foremost, then second, the choice. What made you choose to become a priest? What epiphany occured? As each epiphany will be different, so will the individual reason for wanting to become a cleric.
Since that isn't enough for the rules, after having faith and then choosing to become a cleric, you must then qualify (stat wise). If you do not qualify then you will become a member of the lay clergy who have no special abilities. You will find most people who whose family also served as lay clergy will also tend towards the same. Families serving for generations happen all the time, but that special spark of true faith is still very rare.
There lay your reasons and "rules" for clerics, there is no need to force them to be anything other than the above. Being a cleric isn't like some of the other classes where you can just learn the class abilities and become the class. A cleric is all about faith. If you don't have it, whether or not you can qualify, you cannot be a cleric.
Therefore, to prevent what we both consider to be a serious demographic problem, I feel the need to add some more rules.
There is no need for additional rules. There is a very good reason why fully half of every population doesn't become a first level cleric, and it's faith. Believing in a god and having completely unshakeable faith are two very different things. It's rare, it's special, which is why it's so few people are capable of being full clerics.
EDIT: last sentence was poorly written.
kgauck
05-20-2007, 06:47 AM
Being a cleric isn't like some of the other classes where you can just learn the class abilities and become the class. A cleric is all about faith. If you don't have it, whether or not you can qualify, you cannot be a cleric.
This sounds an awful lot like DM fiat, which is hard to base a world on. In fact to a simulationist, its a breach of the player DM contract. Its certainly not satisfying to a simulationist DM (breach of contract with self) who wants something recognizable to point to when constructing a character that tells him yes this pious NPC might have cleric levels and no this pious NPC wouldn't have cleric levels.
As an example, I have a bright line test as to whether an NPC might or might not have Noble class levels, and if he's eligable he must have one, and if he's not, he can never have any.
This is the sort of thing a world-builder looks for, the world tells the DM whether the NPC is this or that, the DM doesn't decide and then create an explanation for it.
Dcolby
05-20-2007, 12:46 PM
I think the central point in all this that is going by the wayside just a little is not what percentage of a population qualify for clerical status and the resulting "explosion" of npc clerics that should result and unbalence the world etc.., but rather human nature and the central D&D core idea that the Players and the powerful NPC's are the exception rather than the rule.
Whatever you as the D.M. decides are the factors required to become a cleric..faith, devotion, alignment, education, favor of the Deity etc..it is assumed or in my opinion should be assumed that the P.C.s have "it" when the create a cleric. (Certainly in my worlds should someone wish to multiclass they must demonstrate via Role play the above traits in order to add a level of cleric) The players are the movers and shakers, the "Legends".
The others powerful NPC's that are beyond the typical spear bearers have the drive to acheive and better themselves, much as your P.C.'s do which makes them worthy adversaries or allies.
If you are wondering why everyone in a village does not take a level of cleric in order to better themselves, maybe you should ask why every college graduate does not take network engineering instead of fine arts.
People go lots of different ways and travel down many paths, what one person is suited for and desires is not suited or desireable to another.
Besides it not as much fun if everyone else can do it...for what ever reason or combination of factors both physical and psychological most NPC's never leave the farm or get out of the familiy biz.
I wanted to be a Cowboy when I grew up...
There are certainly ranchs, there are still cattle, there are still horses and while there are not as many as once before there are still Cowboys...so why am I living in NH with a wife and 2.5 kids??
Same reason why everyone in your D&D village is not a cleric..
I am through ranting...have a sparkling day everyone..:)
ryancaveney
05-20-2007, 03:01 PM
I always like to run these logical questions past the more naturalistic classes, fighter and rogues. So I ask, what if only blooded characters could be fighters, rogues, and nobles, and unblooded characters had to be warriors, rogues, and aristocrats? Its tempting, but I wonder.
My reasoning for doing it is simply that the D&D magic system is far too powerful. If one takes the other approach as you do, making spells less powerful and further limiting each caster's access to them, there is less need to limit the raw number of casters. I don't see a need to prevent ten million people with several fighter levels, because that doesn't break the setting the way that ten million minor spellcasters do. As far as the fighter/warrior split goes, I like to make the warrior class more attractive to groups and fighter the specialty of loners. That is, Conan is a Fighter and his opponents Warriors not because he is a PC and they are not, but because a Fighter is someone whose skill set is optimized for being the only one on his side, while a Warrior is someone whose skill set is optimized for being part of a team. In 3E, this seems to me to be mostly feat selection, e.g. Spring Attack vs. a bonus for defending the guy next to you with your shield.
Ryan
kgauck
05-20-2007, 03:17 PM
The reason world-builder DM's want a coherant argument for who can be and who cannot be a cleric (or whatever class we're discussing) is because we see our job as building a coherant world where our players find adventure. We don't create an interesting story for them to follow, or set up well matched encounters. As our players wander the world and enter villages, we need to know what's in those villages without having to plan it all out in advance, and we want villages to resemble each other because the world is consistant.
Here is my solution (different from both Andrew's and Ryan's) to the problem of having half the population who might think a cleric level is the way to go because injuries are such a normal risk of daily life.
I use a wound/vitality system
Healing spells are good for vitality, but only heal one point of wound damage per die of vitality healed.
I make healing spells a skill check
I require that only half of all levels can be spellcasting
Each one of these rules has some other desirable game effect (they were not invented to solve this problem) so the solution is integrated. These principles make sense throughout the game, they are not fiat for one particular problem.
Using the wound/vitality system is designed to make combat more realistic, by making the risk of mortal injury as risky as a critical threat and a confirmation, but its also there to make healing more naturalistic, by healing vitality in a fantasy game fashion, but have only a marginal effect on wounds. Also, if healing requires a skill check, then just possession of the spell is not enough to guarantee a healing result. You have to invest in skill ranks, but cleric offers few skill ranks, so a character is having to draw skill ranks from another class to put them into Heal. For a normal person, this means less skill on an area they use everyday for something that will come up occasionally, which is an investement that may not be worth while. Finally, if I decide that a town is of sufficient size that the most powerful prelate is 4th level, that means he's at best a 2nd level cleric, with two levels elsewhere.
So taking a level of cleric means a cost of service to the temple, obediance to its rules, comitment to its purposes, for the benefit that if I spend sufficient experience and skill ranks, in the event of an injury, maybe I can restore one wound point to the injured family member. Or, I can summon the wise woman or priest. I think that's a cost effect calculation that no one would see desirable. The DMG gives me a reasonable number of clergy per population. Then I describe half of their levels or more as non-spellcasting, require skill checks, and further assume that with this aid, I'm getting a naturalistic result, and that without this aid, the result is like a real medieval person who gets no medical treatment. The cleric 1/something else 2 is performing the role of the historical midwife, physician, or barber, applying a bit of medical know-how which sometimes will mean the difference between death and survival.
ryancaveney
05-20-2007, 03:30 PM
In fact to a simulationist, its a breach of the player DM contract. Its certainly not satisfying to a simulationist DM (breach of contract with self) who wants something recognizable to point to when constructing a character that tells him yes this pious NPC might have cleric levels and no this pious NPC wouldn't have cleric levels.
Excellently put, Kenneth. "Breach of contract with self." That is the best characterization I've ever heard of exactly what this feels like to me. This is why suggestions of "well, it just is that way" make the game less fun for me. What I like is figuring it out, and improving the logical structure of the system. It's why I'm a physicist, not an engineer. =) If you don't like that kind of thing, then don't get involved. Saying "just leave it alone" will only convince me that I have identified a problem worth solving; the only way to get me to let go of the topic is to provide a better solution than I have yet thought up on my own.
DM fiat... is hard to base a world on. ... This is the sort of thing a world-builder looks for, the world tells the DM whether the NPC is this or that, the DM doesn't decide and then create an explanation for it.
Yes. In the end, the DM has to make all the decisions. The world-builder type actively seeks out more decisions to make about background details, none of which may affect the play of any particular adventure series, but which (to him) make the whole process more fun and the world more satisfying. However, in order to make all those extra decisions in a reasonable amount of time -- or even remember what all of them were, which is the first step in achieving the consistency which pleases me -- it helps to make decisions which impose other decisions as logical consequences.
Ryan
Beruin
05-21-2007, 01:24 AM
The reason world-builder DM's want a coherant argument for who can be and who cannot be a cleric (or whatever class we're discussing) is because we see our job as building a coherant world where our players [b]find[b] adventure. We don't create an interesting story for them to follow, or set up well matched encounters. As our players wander the world and enter villages, we need to know what's in those villages without having to plan it all out in advance, and we want villages to resemble each other because the world is consistant.
Well, I can relate to this and also see myself as a world-builder DM. However regarding clerics, I don't really see the need for a 'hard' in-game mechanic too limit their potential number (though I can see the point in the rules you use), I believe a 'soft' role-playing limitation is enough here:
It is costly and time-consuming to become a cleric (or a druid). The potential candidate has to train for several years and he needs costly equipment (books, parchment, ink etc.). Normally, the candidate's family has to pay for his education and most churches will also expect a handsome compensation for traing a candidate, limiting clerical traing to the offspring of nobles or rich merchants.
Exceptions will be made for exceptional candidates from the lower classes who might receive sponsoring. Here however, the church will look for candidates who not only show the necessary wisdom, but are also bright enough to comprehend the teachings/writings of the church and charismatic enough to preach successfully. A candidate to be sponsored therefore has to have above average scores in wisdom, intelligence, and charisma at least. Depending on the deity and the church, additional abilities would require higher scores, like strength and constitution for the more militant temples.
This I guess, is enough explanation why not simply half of the population take a level in cleric.
Dcolby
05-21-2007, 03:13 AM
A Fighter is someone whose skill set is optimized for being the only one on his side, while a Warrior is someone whose skill set is optimized for being part of a team. In 3E, this seems to me to be mostly feat selection, e.g. Spring Attack vs. a bonus for defending the guy next to you with your shield.
Ryan
Maybe you already have it but what you are describing is very much like an OGL d20 system called "Ancients" by Mongoose publishing. They have two basic Fighting class types.
The Noble Warrior who has access to many feats and being Noble born good equipment etc.. As the game is based around Ancient Greece and other Agean cultures the Noble Warrior is primarily the "Leader" type who seeks out single combat situations like say from the Illiad etc..
The Warrior is a common born professional with access to less feats but a d-12 for hits and access to formation fighting feats. A rugged no nonsense sort with less finese.
the system also boasts an interesting take on spell casting (skill checks to cast and an increasing difficulty for each spell you cast before resting as you tire yourself) as well as a "bloody" variation of the combat system.
Combat is not player friendly so wading into battle is not undertaken lightly.
The D.M. can also taylor the Fantasy elements up or down to his or her liking.
It presents an interesting group of ideas and systems, but has some design flaws (I feel) that make the game difficult to understand (Lots of what ifs not covered or left vague) and requires some house rule tinkering to get flowing smoothly.
Thelandrin
05-21-2007, 03:24 PM
I have d20 Ancients and it is an interesting book.
In my opinion though, Birthright just calls out for heroic characters. Particularly in Cerilia, where many people's destinies are forged by a few, PC classes are going to be rare. If, as it seems to be, the Cerilian deities are distant and do not overly involve themselves with Aebrynis, it would stand to reason that not many people will embrace a life of dedication, service and duty, without much to show for it. ("Sure, you can cast a minor healing spell once per day, but who wants all that endless praying?")
ryancaveney
06-07-2007, 08:46 PM
Maybe you already have it but what you are describing is very much like an OGL d20 system called "Ancients" by Mongoose publishing. They have two basic Fighting class types... the Noble Warrior is primarily the "Leader" type who seeks out single combat situations... The Warrior is a common born professional with access to less feats but a d-12 for hits and access to formation fighting feats.
I hadn't known of it, but this conversation inspired me to buy it. I read through OGL Ancients last night, and I really, really like it! The armor and wounding rules are my favorite part, especially the section on grievous wound cauterization. The difference between noble warrior and common warrior is excellent -- it is exactly what I was looking for.
Does anyone know of somewhere I could find equivalent damage reduction and absorption statistics for the medieval armor types common in PHB D&D? I could always invent them myself, but it's far more efficient to just steal the numbers from someone else's hard work. =)
Ryan
Dcolby
06-07-2007, 10:08 PM
Glad you like it...
It is a good book for source materials even if everything in the system does not work for you... (I kind of like how they handle magic as well) Alas I have never converted the Armor systems to the Medievil Armors...
Beruin
06-08-2007, 12:59 AM
Does anyone know of somewhere I could find equivalent damage reduction and absorption statistics for the medieval armor types common in PHB D&D? I could always invent them myself, but it's far more efficient to just steal the numbers from someone else's hard work. =)
Ryan
There a number of settings and d20 rules that use damage reducing armor, but I haven't seen damage absorption used anywhere else. I would love to see a write-up though, should you decide to convert medieval armor to this system...
ShadowMoon
06-08-2007, 05:40 AM
D&D 3.5 Unearthed Arcana has Armor Absorbation etc...
Gwrthefyr
06-08-2007, 01:49 PM
In Godswar Azrai commanded legions of Demons, but when old gods were destroyed, Shadow World pulled them all in, including various Outsiders.
But that was well over a millenium ago, that's well, well out of living memory for any human.
ShadowMoon
06-08-2007, 02:29 PM
But that was well over a millenium ago, that's well, well out of living memory for any human.
I am sure there are tomes, scriptures etc. that describes Godswar and/or deal with powers beyond the veil, at least vaguely.
Anyway I fail to see Your point about Outsiders present at Godswar and human memory. Care to explain what You were referring to?
Gwrthefyr
06-08-2007, 03:14 PM
I am sure there are tomes, scriptures etc. that describes Godswar and/or deal with powers beyond the veil, at least vaguely.
Anyway I fail to see Your point about Outsiders present at Godswar and human memory. Care to explain what You were referring to?
Hmmm... reading two threads at the same time, not realizing I was at the first page of one, I thought you were using godswar as an example of a proof of the existence of the gods (when you might have put it as a counterpoint to some weird idea of divine supremacy; I should probably just steer clear of religious discussions in Birthright - I'm still annoyed that they couldn't seem to bother making a sensible pantheon instead of a bunch of pseudo-mystery cults with monotheist trappings)
As for human memory, before the arrival of printing, it is as much if not more important than tomes; they would be constantly rewritten, and could often end up deformed in the process, there could also be attempts to retcon old myths to fit new religions (something we find in nearly all the Irish and British corpus, except maybe for a few key documents).
kgauck
06-08-2007, 04:07 PM
You tease us with such intriging hints. Why do you suggest the BR faiths are pseudo-mystery cults? What about them strikes you as monotheist trappings? And, what would a sensible pantheon look like? Do tell.
Gwrthefyr
06-08-2007, 05:04 PM
I've been trying for a time to rework the Cerilian pantheon into something actually pantheistic (I'm nowhere close to finish; that was part of a small overhaul I was trying to do to also add some linguistic diversity, establish demographics and political situation for various periods etc., and it's actually quite hard to do when I'm unable to concentrate on things and have been trying at the same time to work out some Enlightenment/Industrial setting using Fuzion with just enough fantasy for the effects to be somewhat controllable, and, well, school :D ).
My snide comment about mystery cults comes from the various orders (paladins of Nesirie, Haelyn, Cuiraecen, Ela's "amazons", the situation with Ruornil, hints about monasteries/priories/abbacies; these initiatic groups outside the priesthood struck me as mystery elements partly to give them a more medieval feel) and the organization of the various temples as seemingly envisioned at first, with spellcasting priests being expected as speciality priests. The other snide comment about monotheistic trappings also comes from that, IIRC, there was a comment somewhere about temple levels being indicative of worship; I may have taken this a little too literally.
By sensible pantheon, I meant a pantheon were not every god seems to be in charge of the deceased (a psychopomp in the lot of them could be interesting), at least; I actually liked the idea of the Shadow World as some kind of Otherworld without having to tie in the Planescape cosmology (or at least, tie it in blatantly); with the illusions, the deceased souls could either keep on going, force themselves through remorseful nightmares or manage an afterlife of delights (Tartarus, Elisyum and the Asphodels all in one). The feeling of ostracism towards the "evil gods" also feels somewhat wrong (but I'm going with a mix of my impressions from the roman, celtic and hindu models, which might need further education): a lot of the gallic linguistic corpus is made of curses (as in, the magical oath sort, not swear words); room for religious interpretation (but this would be partialy ethnic; again, in real word examples, Saturn was a more benevolent figure than Chronos). Most of the modifications I thought of would probably be outside the scope of a conversion project, though.
And it's incredibly ranty so I'd better stop there until I get my hands back on my notebook.
*and I seem to feel a slight amount of sarcasm, but that must be my imagination ;)
ryancaveney
06-08-2007, 09:02 PM
What about them strikes you as monotheist trappings?
One of the things we've often discussed before is the idea that before Deismaar, each of the six tribes practiced a separate monotheism: Anduiras was the one and only, do-everything god of the Anuireans, Basaia was the one and only, do-everything goddess of the Basarji, Vorynn was the one and only, do-everything god of the Vos, and so on. Only in more recent times (shortly before Deismaar) did pluralistic worship of each other's gods arise out of increased cultural contact and support during the war against Azrai. I'm not sure I like it best, but it does have some things in its favor.
Ryan
ryancaveney
06-08-2007, 09:04 PM
But that was well over a millenium ago, that's well, well out of living memory for any human.
Ah, but well within living memory for the Sidhelien! This is one of the reasons I have decided in my own vision of Cerilia that there are no gods to worship: the elves were there, so they know there aren't gods. =)
Ryan
kgauck
06-08-2007, 10:05 PM
In Greek myth, the first humans didn't worship the gods either. They were created in the second divine age, when Chronos and the titans ran about, and when Zeus took over, demanded the worship of the men, and when they refused, he inundated the world. This ended the silver age of men.
Other interesting parallels with the sidhe, the men in both the golden and silver ages were ever-young. The golden aged men interacted with the gods and died peacefully when their time was up. The silver aged men were young for a long time, but didn't live as long, and didn't enjoy their youth as much as the golden oldies. They aged rapidly before death.
I have long equated Cerilia before the comming of men as the golden age of Hesiod, for the elves, and the post Shadow War age as a silver age.
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