Any Christian rpgs?

[Parmandur]

Doubtful. More likely to produce error than anything resembling either modern or


No, they do not. Making such a claim shows a lack of knowledge of the history of the Reformation and the Catholic Counterreformation.

I can disprove that claim with one historical element...
The medieval church believed and taught that one could pay one's way out of purgatory by the buying of indulgences with cash. (The modern Catholic church still has indulgences, but you can't buy them - you get them by pilgrimage and penitential service. Noting that the other 20 churches in the Roman Communion don't use the term, but do have the concept.)

No modern Christian church I'm aware of allows paying for indulgences, and almost all protestant denomications reject the purgatory concept, so indulgences are a non-sequiteur for the mainstream protestants.

There are a dozen other issues on which the modern Catholic church differs strongly from it's medieval version... Translation of the bible, translation of the liturgy, whether minor clerics are indeed clerics or are laymen, whether torture is allowed in defense of the faith... Whether laymen can lead services of any kind... who gets to make changes to the liturgical texts and rubrics. Whether Serfdom, peonage, and slavery are allowed.

See the conciliar and postconciliar documents from the councils of Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, and the unions of Uzhorod & of Brest-Litovsk....

Yes, fairly familiar with all of that, thank you, but discussing how paying for indulgences is a matter of discipline rather than doctrine is rather off topic and outside the realm of this forum. The idea of virtue ethics, however, that lie at the center of Pendragon, remain 100% relevant to the topic of the OP as an example.

 

[Voadam]

The inclusion of True Faith is primarily to up power adversaries. Everything the wizards do is, at least through 4th ed, opposed by the church as presented in the game, and opposed by the historic 12 and 13th century Church. If one is looking for Christian morality as the basis of play, Ars Magic as a mechanical setup makes for a poor choice, as the mechanics are optimized for behaviors that are opposed by the historic church and the in-rulebook church-as-described.

Testament, that the OP said was the type they are looking for, is not based on New Testament christian morality but slightly fantasy/mythical Ancient Israel as a setting with specifically ancient Jewish models as a basis of play with their judge class and such.

Not to mention that, despite appearing to be aimed at villains, the 3rd ed supplement The Maleificum is very much a player supplement as well.

There is also 3rd edition's Pax Dei the specifically Church Dominion counterpart to the Maleficium.

"Pax Dei is the companion volume to the Ars Magica supplement, The Maleficium. This book delves into Mythic Europe's Church and Divinity, just as The Maleficium explores the milieu of Hell, and its residents' machinations. The two books conjoin and oppose one another, reflecting both sides of the Christian coin."

"Despite the attitude of many Magi, who do not believe in Heaven or Hell but instead look forward to transcendence in Twilight, there are some (especially among post-Christian Roman Magi) who venerate Church and God. There are three ways for Hermetic Magi to come to God. The first is the easiest to name but difficult to come by: True Faith. A Magus who achieves True Faith interacts closely with the Divine, even if she does not possess the Piety Ability. The second path is found through prayer and tithing to Saint Nerius, Patron Saint of the Order of Hermes. By this devotion a Magus may receive grace and be allowed into the family of the Church, maybe even permitted salvation. The third way for Magi to come to God is by becoming what are known as Pious Magi.
The first path to God, True Faith, is discussed in Chapter Three of this book. The second path, devotion to Saint Nerius, is discussed in Chapter Five, under the veneration of saints in general, but more information on Nerius himself is provided below. The third and most dramatic means to God, dedication to pious magic, is discussed here."

Fourth edition had more books for playing outside the normal hermetic magi base including a whole sourcebook on Mythic Judaism Kabbalah and Ultima Thule for Scandinavian pagan characters.

The base play of Ars Magica is not designed around Christian morality as the basis of its default play, but it is a fairly christian setting with options to incorporate those who want to use Christian morality as the basis of play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know of several evangelical youth groups that play 5th Edition D&D from a Christian perspective, as-is. Real-world religion is as integral to the game as you want/need it to be.

That said, back in the day there was a D&D campaign called "Testament," published by Green Ronin, that took place in the world as-described in Biblical times, particularly the Old Testament. Here's a link. I remember that it was a quality product, and was very nicely done. It was written for D&D 3rd Edition, and I don't think it has been updated to 3.5E, 4E, or 5E.
View attachment 287841

That was done by the late Scott Bennie, who both was knowledgeable on the subject and did not know how to do things halfway.

 

[Celebrim]

Pendragon, the religious virtues are pretty good, but are reflective of the Medieval church more than the modern Christian theological groups.

I do a lot of reading in church fathers and various popular commentary, enchridons, sermons and testimonials through the centuries, and really I have discovered that the older the writing the more likely the ideas are to be familiar to me.

It's firmly grounded in Catholic and Jewish cosmology. Very firmly so.

It's very firmly grounded in Christian and Jewish esoteric mythology, that is angelology and demonology. That's not the same thing.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I hope this can be said here:

We should realises there is a serious difference between "Christian-friendly" fiction and fiction what uses Christian religion as source of inspiration. Good example of Christian-friendly fantasy are Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and in certain way, Dragonlance.

In your games you can add characters as cardenal Richelieu, Claude Frollo or bishop of Aquila(Ladyhawk movie) but you shouldn't abuse the trope of sinnister minister. It is like the trope of femme fatale. You can add a femme fatale in your game some times, but if you start to add too many times, but then this could become close to mysogyny.

Take care when you are going to mention historical facts to report the fact. You could find somebody who knows a radically version of History, and this could know more you could guess.

The lore or background of some games aren't Christian-friendly, but this could be easily changed by the GM.

If you use the stories to report the fanaticism, but you are forggeting we have to promote the respect for the human dignity and the good sense, then you are helping to fix nothing.

I don't like at all the stereotypes about the Vatican Church in the RPG 7th Sea. I feel like a Mexican watching the trailer of Disney's Primos cartoon.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't like at all the stereotypes about the Vatican Church in the RPG 7th Sea. I feel like a Mexican watching the trailer of Disney's Primos cartoon.

The Church of 7th Sea isn't historical in almost any way after about 60 CE... the basic ideas John built it on are "No St. Paul, hence Gnostic"...

The pseudo-Catholic pseudo-Gnostic hybrid of 7th Sea doesn't feel well thought out, and the lack of St. Paul doesn't axiomatically lead to the Gnostics.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And the orcs and the drows are totally fictional races, sorry, now species but these are being changed to avoid...... "offensive content" against communities from the real life. The origin of hadozees in Spelljammer 5e have been erasured because somebody said it may politically incorrect. You could say something is OK but other to report it as offensive.

The inquisition of 7th Sea, or Ars Magica, is a good example of "Catholic players aren't wellcome here". It is based in the prejudices of the authors in the real life. And this is worse when the History is used to reports of a side but total silence about the horrible actions by others. How would you feel if fanfiction told the queen of Avalon is a reptilian alien who drinks blood of tortured children from Inismore to keep young?

 

[Umbran]

Most modern Christians share the same theology and ethical framework of the "Medieval Church,"...

No, they do not. Making such a claim shows a lack of knowledge of the history of the Reformation and the Catholic Counterreformation.

Mod Note:
So, not only are you two ignoring the board rules, you are also ignoring a prior moderator warning in the thread. I believe the appropriate phrase is now "on thin ice"...

Take your argument about real-world theology and ethics elsewhere. It is not appropriate for this site.

 

[ART!]

DnD already borrows too much from Christiam trappings as it is. there is no need to increase the thematic elements.

Yeah, vanilla D&D, both TSR and WotC versions, is extremely close to Catholic worldview and cosmology already. A setting book closing the gap would be extremely small.

[Having written the post below, I realize it's kind of off-topic, so I might start a new thread on the subject of how games depict spiritual traditions and the characters who follow them.]

Agreed, and this is a pet peeve of mine. It betrays the predominantly Christian (or culturally Christian) upbringing of the writers and players of the game. The results are dull and uninspiring for me, someone raised in that culture as well. We seem to be getting away from that as we get more diverse creators working for the big publishers, but we have a long way to go. For games with cleric-like classes (or the equivalent), I want really robust ways to imagine what becoming a [cleric] involves, what the responsibilities are as an adventurer, how much and what kinds of control the hierarchy has (if there's a hierarchy) - all that kind of stuff. I want that to have a bearing on how the characters are played, how the class is built, etc. What devotional activities are required? How often? What happens if you don't do them?

 

[GMMichael]

You could grab yourself a generic RPG and model it after this:

... or just take the easy route:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/dantes-divine-comedy-for-5e-%E2%80%93-the-straight-way-lost-an-interview-with-melina-sed%C3%B3-vortex-verlag.698156/