Temples, Alignment, and Paladins

[dalor]

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
>
>

>
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[ryancaveney]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

"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]

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]

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]

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]

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.