Gaider on clerics and divine magic

[Spazmo]

There's a simple enough solution to the entirely valid problem Gromnir suggests. Just make gods less picky about their followers. Assuming a god's strength is derived from its believers, that god is going to want mucho believers. Neutral gods could care less who worships them as long as their cause (knowledge, trees or whatever) is served. Evil gods can cackle dramatically at the foolish misguided goodly types who worship them. As for good gods, they could just rationalize things with greater good and end justify the means stuff to explain why they let the morally dubious into seminary. The gods would be more detached from the actual mortal setting. Perhaps they're busy fighting wars with other gods or extraplanar beings on their home planes and just look to the belief of mortals as a source of power.

And in any case, depending on the setting, most gods' portfolios are flexible enough that they could be interpreted into any alignment. The easy example is fire: neutral because it doesn't discriminate when it burns, good because it signifies renewal (clear out the undergrowth to allow trees to grow and such) and evil because it destroys stuff. Justice is a very flexible belief because the simple idea of justice--i.e., enforcing laws--doesn't really necessarily say what the law is. The paladin hunting down murderers and rapists could worship the justice god just as easily as the evil inquisitor seeking out illegal elves in his country (mmm... elf genocide).

Since DA is essentially a clean slate, a very simple approach is this: have the pantheon be composed of gods who don't have alignments and whose portfolios are very much open to interpretation. That way, you could have worshippers and priests from every end of the alignment spectrum with a given god. Different branches of the same overall clergy could bicker, lone priests interpreting their god in a unique way could walk around planting adventure seeds and essentially everything Gromnir outlined above.

Essentially the problem with the D&D god system is the same problem as with D&D at large--alignment. I never liked alignment. Maybe it's just my player group that sucks, but whenever anyone would try to do anything the least bit contrary to their character sheet alignment, everyone would start going "no! You can't possibly buy apples from that merchant! He beats his servants and you're chaotic good! Just starve--it's for your principles." Similarly, another player would constantly betray every other party member and generally only look out for himself. Okay, it was entertaining a couple times, but when every character would do it... Well. When told to cut it out, he'd always be ready: "Ah, but my character is chaotic neutral/lawful evil/neutral evil. It's role-playing." Alignment isn't an excuse for disrupting the party. In my games, I like to just get rid of alignment altogether (which is, incidentally, one of the changes Monte Cook, that wacky 3E designer guy and writer of the Dungeon Master Guide, did in his Arcana Unearthed). Just decide if your character is an asshole or not. Play accordingly. Bam! One less useless line on your character sheet. Next: has your PC's eye colour ever really been relevant?

 

[Gromnir]

da will be a clean slate, and a much more simple and elegant solution is to simply get rid of the Gods and pantheons.

am not getting why folks is fighting so hard to keep 'em when it is apparent that you is having to do lots o' work to do so... when you can accomplish more simply by getting rid o' meddlesome gods who grant mundane miracles to their "faithful."

*shrug*

and alignment, as much as we loathe it, ain't hardly the totality of the issue. people get so caught up in alignment that they forget that playing a religious character is far more complex than simply following those ridiculous alignment descriptors. take two devout LG characters who follow LG gods. one is a dwarf who follows some sorta stereotypical dwarfy god o' battle. the other is a human who follows some LG god o' peace and psychedelic drugs. our two intrepid adventurers happen 'pon a village o' orcs. Gromnir would expect two very different reactions from the human and the dwarf... despite same alignment.

regardless, you still got issues o' faith... and faith is a joke when you got priests who is able to call upon their God for aid with full knowledge that their God will respond visibly and predictably with a "miracle."

am all for getting rid of alignment... have been clamoring for such a thing for years, but even so you still has only addressed one small aspect o' the problem o' divine spell casters.

(btw, as far as we know, da will NOT have alignment along with game breaking detection o' alignment type o' spells.)

"Yes, Grom. People go to doctors rather than priests when their sick. But there isn't a magical way to instantly heal people."

so what? in a world with mundane magic, why is you gonna attribute some special quality to the pimply faced adept who helped cure your case o' pink eye for 3 silver pieces, as 'posed to the secular doctor who did same thing? saying that one is magical and the other ain't is hardly meaningful... in fact, the scientific approach would be more likely to dispel one's faith, wouldn't it? science is rational... is predictable and follows predictable behaviors as the result o' fundamental laws o' nature. as you noted, modern medicine is relatively recent... but belief in magic has been 'round for a long, long time. science killed off magic... but faith in God survived.

vd's post ain't worth responding to. is just more reply/quote nonsense where in he responds to sentences instead o' posts... and contradicts self with every third reply. you folks say that Gromnir posts is hard to follow?

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Ausir]

As much as I hate to do this, I have to support Gromnir on this. Existence of "real gods" is not necessary in a fantasy world. A wizard who heals people can be compared to a doctor who does the same - and neither of those would manage to destroy religion (especially if some clerics were also wizards, who'd claim that their powers come from the gods). A good example is the world of The Witcher.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

I would love a nice secular fantasy game. Where there are orcs and elves that came about through natural selection. I would even go so far as to accept magic if it was explained as manifestation of advanced telekinetic abilities, summonings could be psychicly induced hallucinations with psychosomatic trauma responses to percieved hits. Of course none of the people in the game world would know or differentiate between this and true magic but I would be happier and thats all that matters.

 

[IClaudius]

Interesting discussion. If I've been following things correctly (and I may not have been), Gromnir’s point is sound – in that holding on to clerical classes & linking their powers to their deity’s personality will be inimical to issues of faith. Maybe there is some way to dilute the logical relationship between power progression and strength of faith / ideological commitment, but then you’ve just swapped the problem of generalist cleric powers for a whole bunch of balance issues with the new deity classes. IMO it does seem prima facie more interesting to have a world with competing explanations on ‘magic’; however, I’m wondering whether faction specific bonuses are really capturing the essence of things. Can the far reaching metaphysical question of belief in a deity really be appropriately represented by mere outward membership of what is essentially a guild, regardless of how strict the rules of admittance? If your answer is of course not - crpgs would just rely on tests of faith regardless of membership, then that (arguably) doesn't really capture the internal & ontological nature of faith. Also is it really worth it to do away with special differentiating magic and the idea of divine grants besides whatever contingent institution-specific stuff is a part of the world? Isn't the bottom line that there can be no such thing as a faction-less divine beneficiary no matter how zealous.

 

[mr. lamat]

the concept of faith is far different in the world of faerun though, or wherever dragon age will take place. your god or goddess will from time to time drop in on the world of mankind and whup some ass for their cause. that in itself changes the nature of faith, your diety made flesh. they battle and their followers battle. granted, to the fanatical right of islam and the west wing of the whitehouse, jesus is going after allah with a piece of the true cross like mcsorley with a hockey stick, but in the fantasy realm, faith is more of a service rendered than a belief system. it only makes sense that these dieties would grant powers for faithfulness and time served.

we have stories and fables. they may speak of gods walking the earth, usually in the form of an animal and a poor woman taking some swan cock, but they require belief. the miracles of our world are esoteric and intangible. that's far removed from actions and concepts of the gods in the context of this game.

 

[Ausir]

We don't know what will the world of Dragon Age be, aside from being standard fantasy with elves and dwarves. It might very well be a "secular fantasy" with just one kind of magic and no divine interventions.

 

[Reklar]

Why does balance suddenly seem to mean equivalent combat abilities or tactical choices? Why doesn't balance mean equivalent roleplaying potential and choices? The thing everyone loved about Fallout & Fallout 2 was the wealth of choices offered to develop your character as you saw fit. It wasn't a question of could your science-boy beat-up my sniper-boy, it was how did your science-boy, or charsima-boy, or sniper-boy finish the game? Did s/he mow down the Master/Enclave like so many blades of grass or did s/he convice him/everyone that what the Master/Enclave was doing was inherently wrong and should be stopped? That was true roleplaying, not how well you did fighting (remnants of) the Master's Army.

I recognize that the D&D system does not lend itself well to pure roleplaying in a cRPG because it is heavily focused on 'combat & carry', but should that line of thought be reinforced by the cRPG community so the developers think that's what is important to us? I suppose if you have to be stuck with a class system everyone is going to think of combat first and roleplaying second, but it seems to me that it's the wrong approach to take if you want something more than a Diablo or Baldur's Gate clone. Specialized classes tend to encourage the combat aspect of cRPGs instead of presenting new roleplaying opportunities because everyone's focus is on whether or not class A mage is as powerful as class B mage and so on ad naseum. Granted I am not a professional game designer or any equivalent of such, but after many years of gaming it is my opinion that generalized classes, if you must have them, with many skill/power options to choose from is preferable to specialized and restrictive classes because the specialized classes limit your range of responses to any given situation.

All in all, this thread and the discussion it has provoked is quite a good read for the most part, but it tends to be too focused on combat and not on roleplaying. Given BioWare's track record this, of course, is not much of a surprise to me, but I can always hope for them to improve their repetoire. Hopefully without the trappings of D&D more creative suggestions will be implemented into Dragon Age and the game will turn out to be worthwhile.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Ausir]

I recognize that the D&D system does not lend itself well to pure roleplaying in a cRPG because it is heavily focused on 'combat & carry'.

Not always. Remember Torment?

 

[Reklar]

I recognize that the D&D system does not lend itself well to pure roleplaying in a cRPG because it is heavily focused on 'combat & carry'.

Not always. Remember Torment?

This is quite true, Planescape: Torment is an exception to the rule overall, but it still required a great deal of combat that wasn't really necessary (bands of street thugs, hordes of undead, etc.). Personally I think PS:T is a diamond in the rough with regards to D&D cRPGs, but from what I've heard Wizards has discontinued the setting (?) and because PS:T wasn't a big commercial success it's not likely any developer will ever use it again. Rather tragic I think considering the wealth of roleplaying opportunities it presents.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)

 

[Ausir]

Planescape stuff is now condensed in the Manual of the Planes, but it's not a separate campaign setting anymore.

 

[taks]

Why does balance suddenly seem to mean equivalent combat abilities or tactical choices? Why doesn't balance mean equivalent roleplaying potential and choices?

it doesn't. rather, balance generally means the "usability factor" of various PC class/race combos. keep in mind, we're usually discussing crpgs which reduces the roleplaying potential for all combos... context is important. this isn't a sudden thing either. it's actually something people are often fighting for, but will probably always come up short with until they manage to package a live DM and all your PnP buddies in a crpg. computing power just isn't there, and as a result, balance will imply how "strong" a character is relative to the other characters.

taks

 

[Spazmo]

Reklar: This is a BioWare CRPG. Hoping for balanced classes is one thing, but hoping for non-linear gameplay with multiple solutions on the level of Fallout is just wishful thinking.

 

[Monte Carlo]

As I said before, the source of "clerical power" is just a trope for an alternative style of character development. Pantheon/ philosphy/ spiritualism/ animism....it's all moot as far as I can see. As long as it fits in with the game setting then I'm pretty cool with it.

I often use the old 70's RPG RuneQuest as a good exampe of how to deal with religion. RQ had "cults" which the character could join. Cults had a hierarchy which served character requirements:

Layman: you are a declared worshipper who puts a few coins in the collecting tin. Benefits are limited: you might get a cheap bed at the temple barracks or the ear of a priest, but that's about it.

Initiate: you've taken an important step and become one of the Faithful. You are probably tithed to the point it hurts slightly, and dogma affects your relationships with other groups, but in return you get more influence in the church and get access to cheaper training in fighting and magic.

Runepriest: you become a significant member of clergy. You have very clearly defined rights and responsibilities. You gain access to unique powers but in turn have specific restrictions on your conduct.

- or -

Runelord: you become a member of the religious warrior elite. You are the martial equivalent of a Runepriest.

Runelord/ Priest: the highest accolade, you are now The Daddy in your cult and have major powers and responsibilities. You are a fearsome warrior and spiritual savant.

OK, this is a coding nightmare for a CRPG that isn't exclusively on the PCs progression through a particular faith. Nonetheless, it is a solid approach to the question of "faith" in a CRPG and you could easily streamline it to address balanced character development.

For example, in a wilderness area, the local initiate of god "X" is the highest ranking religious worthy and accords commensurate respect. On top of his religious status he is also a noted druid, minor sorcerer and hunter. Meanwhile, in a thriving metropolis, a priest of god "Y" is nothing but a local functionary with no anciliary skills.

Cheers
MC

 

[Reklar]

Reklar: This is a BioWare CRPG. Hoping for balanced classes is one thing, but hoping for non-linear gameplay with multiple solutions on the level of Fallout is just wishful thinking.

Good point. I guess that's why I've never finished Baldur's Gate or Baldur's Gate 2, though someday I hope I will so I can feel like I got my money's worth out of them. Then again, Arcanum was a much more open-ended game and I haven't finished it either, probably mostly due to the horrible combat mechanics. Overall though I tend to lose interest in fantasy setting games a lot quicker than sci-fi setting games. Probably has something to do with my reading preferences and dislike of memorizing what all the spells do and when best to use them.

On the issue at hand in this thread though, I tend to agree with Spazmo, Gromnir, and Monte Carlo the most and with mr. lamat in principle, inasmuch as roleplaying opportunities are concerned. To clarify, I don't think artificial gimping of a character class, race, or what have you is a sound practice in computer gaming, because it's inherent weaknesses will prevent all save the most hardcore roleplayers from utilizing it and thus making it primarily a wasted effort (i.e. Wizard Slayer and Beastmaster kits in BG2, ranged fighters in Arcanum), but I do agree that not all classes, races, etc. necessarily have to be created equal. I guess until the market climate changes and consumers show more interest in well-crafted and well-exectuted games we aren't likely to see much except Diablo and Baldur's Gate clones.

-Reklar
(a Fallout/RPG fan)