Could you make a Christian-oriented RPG?

[WizarDru]

(2) GURPS Fantasy: Their world of Yrth has Christian real world religions all over the place. Of course, their priests use magic, they have mages in their employ, etc. It's explained somewhere in the history how they got to that point (I think their Pope simply said 'under these conditions, it's OK').

GURPS Fantasy is a really interesting setting. Essentially, humans from our world got sucked up into some portal magic gone horribly, horribly wrong when the elves attempted to push all the orcs off of the Irth. Instead, they got lots of humans and some other races.

The long and short of it is that most, if not all, of the primary real world religions are represented in GURPS Fantasy. They released a city setting that remains one of my favorite RPG supplements ever, where the city was built around a fork in the river, and each one of the three sections of the city was dominated by a different religion: Islam, Judaism or Christianity. I believe it was based partially on a real world city of antiquity, conceptually speaking. Best handling of real world religions in a fantasy setting that I've seen.

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Re: Re

how exactly is this not magic? sounds like magic to me...

The difference is that Elves don't generally perform what we consider magic, for example...they just practice an extremely fine art the produces things so fine and unique they ARE magical. They even discuss this in FOTR, where the hobbits comment about the magical items the elves manufacture, and the elves are both suprised and confused by the statement. The cloaks and the rope, for example, are not magical so much as so finely crafted by such austere beings as to be magical to non-elves.

The servants of Mordor, too, don't practice magic so much as corrupt things. Almost every other instance of 'magic' in LotR is really a divine being (like the Istari, who are closer to celestials than humans) exerting their will over the shaping of the world or diverting the natural flow of 'the Flame Imperishable'.

It's a subtle difference, but it IS different.

 

[Henry]

Woot I wanna play a game where the Church hierarchy can declare my enemies anathema allowing me to slaughter, torture and pillage them

And after my sadistic crusader slaughters the heathens I can rest assured knowing my immortal soul is saved...

Vuron, you mean you DON'T already do this in Greyhawk??? Dude, you're not roleplaying!

Seriously, I want to give a friendly "interference clause" here. If this leads too far away from topic and into religious debate, or becomes a shouting match, It gets closed. But then, everyone knows that, so it won't happen.

Right?

EDIT - Piratecat is one fast kitty.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

WizarDru explained the concept of Middle Earth magic better than I did. Well said.

 

[smetzger]

I see two strategies for doing a 'Christian' RPG.

1) Just have a setting and very few actual rule changes. This is what I do for my campaign. Rule changes:
Alignments are Good, Evil, or Nuetral
Cleric's of the 'One True God' can choose any two domains except for the Evil domains.
Evil Cleric's cannot Raise Dead
Good Druid's get Raise Dead at 5th level in lieu of Reincarnation
The One True God is loosely based on the Judeo Christian God, with a cross for the holy symbol. There are other 'gods' and cults. Some gods are merely different cultural renditions of the One True God. But most gods and cults are in fact worshipers of demons and devils.
One significant change from the Bible is that Arcane spellcasting is not inherently evil.
I am running RttToEE with these rules.
Or take a look at James Wyatt's Night campaign where the few holy chosen are trying to cope with and overthrow the ruling Demons.

2) Write a whole new game that encourages Biblical ideology. This is much harder to do and I am not really interested in such a game.


I am very much an Adventure/Module type of guy. I would like to see more Adventures like the Holy Land adventure from Dungeon mag. This was set during the Crusades and had strong Christian overtones with very few rule changes.
Adventures could cover Old Testament times in the Middle East; 1st Century Roman persecution of the Christian church; Europe middle-ages and Crusades.

Also, detailed historical cities would be cool. Say Constantinople, Rome, Corinth, Jerusalem, etc. All with standard level of D&D magic, monsters, and demi-humans.

 

[Desdichado]

Here's how it's been explained to me, over the years. The central idea here, the central core to the opposition these people have to D&D, is magic that is weilded by characters. Those last two words are the most important, here. See, what we think of as magic is completely different from the Biblical teaching of magic.

The things you're describing in your post (and others have mentioned) are miracles. Humans cannot do miracles, ever. They do not call down plagues, they do not make food appear, etc. God and only God does those things. Humans cannot do such things, period. If they do, they are using magic, which is a power outside of the Christian realm: ie, from Satan. Remember the extreme duality that most people with this extreme-right mindset have. It doesn't matter if it's healing magic, or what. If it comes at the beck and call of a person, then it's evil.

I really don't understand this. This flies in the face of all the prophets who produced miracles. Sure, ultimately the power came from God, but the prophets were God's agents. In the Bible, Moses is not depicted as evil because he parted the Red Sea, turned the Nile to blood, caused plauges of flies, frogs, etc. to come to Egypt. Elijah is not depicted as evil because he called down fire from heaven to burn his sacrifice.

Just because God is the ultimate source for all miracles doesn't mean that PCs in a Christian RPG have to sit around waiting for divine magic to come out of the blue. Isn't that what praying is for?

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Re

In Tolkien's Middle Earth, magic doesn't really exist. What is called magic by commoners in Middle Earth is really just the ability to manipulate nature and tap into the divine energies present therein.

You could develop a magical system that develops magic along these lines, and work it into a Christian type magic. Though, one could also argue that past users of magic were basically doing the same thing.

Of course it does. Gandalf mentions spells specifically (opening spells at the gates of Khazad-dum, shutting spells before the balrog revealed itself) Tolkien mentions some specific sorcerors (Mouth of Sauron, Queen Beruthiel, some of the Hill-men of Rhudaur) and he also mentions the magic element of the Morgoth corruption in Morgoth's Ring. Although, to the elves, what you say is very close to their definition of magic. But, the elves also contrast that with other magic, particularly the "deceits of the Enemy."

 

[Tyrant]

When I said a "christian-oriented RPG" I was talking about just that. I wasn't considering a game where I play a character who evangelizes, prostelitizes (I can never spell that right), or whatever as the central story theme, nor was I considering a mechanic that determined the final resting place for my eternal soul. (I dont mean to imply those are dumb ideas of not worthy of discussion, they just werent what I was considering when I asked the question...) Evangelizing in the face of angry governments could make for some VERY interesting role-playing adventures. What I personally would want to treat with kid gloves is evangelizing in opposition to the world's other religions (ie christianity vs judaism or vs islam or vice versa in any combination).

I was imagining a fantasy world or variation of our own world where warriors, clerics, and scholars engaged in much the same types of battles as traditional D&D games. The game system writeup would portray heroes as "good" guys and the Players handbook would be devoid of any "evil" spells or magics contrary to published Christian theology (ie no reincarnation). The Game Master's Handbook would then have the evil spellcasting race and rules culled from the OGC sourcebooks about various demons, devils, and evil spellcasters, as well as traditional monsters for the setting. Games like the adventure that appeared in Dungeon (as someone pointed out in an earlier post) could be written.

Should we use traditional classes for characters or should we adopt the "class" system from the Modern rules set?

The biggest obstacle I see to this type of product is the use of real-world religion. As we all know, religion is a VERY sensitive subject. We have scores of different perspectives, even among the Protestant Christian faith. Factor in the multiple sects of judaism (forget its infinite personal permutations of which aspects of the law are still valid for now) and add in Islam and you have a melting pot of often incompatible ideas. Could the RPG be written using the mechanics described above with emphasis on tenants central to all 3 of these religions (you know, though shall not steal, murder, etc) and be purposefully vague on the matter of what form or forms the central deity takes? Would chapters on the belief system for the 3 major religions and their subgroups be interesting and useful?

How feasible is it that the Players portion of this could be released as a pdf under the OGL (not the d20 agreement) and billed as a Christian alternative to the PHB?

Eric

 

[Berk]

The biggest obstacle I see to this type of product is the use of real-world religion. As we all know, religion is a VERY sensitive subject. We have scores of different perspectives, even among the Protestant Christian faith. Factor in the multiple sects of judaism (forget its infinite personal permutations of which aspects of the law are still valid for now) and add in Islam and you have a melting pot of often incompatible ideas. Could the RPG be written using the mechanics described above with emphasis on tenants central to all 3 of these religions (you know, though shall not steal, murder, etc) and be purposefully vague on the matter of what form or forms the central deity takes? Would chapters on the belief system for the 3 major religions and their subgroups be interesting and useful?

And don't forget the many many forms of paganism. =o)

 

[Tyrant]

Skills in a Christian RPG

And don't forget the many many forms of paganism. =o)

Paganism is EASY compared to getting the other part done.

Now, on to a related topic. Skills in a Christian RPG. Someone earlier mentioned that some skills should be done away with. What skills are those? Does pick pockets (perhaps renamed legerdemain) or forgery have a place in the monotheistic worshipper's playbook? Certainly forgery COULD be used for "good", if for example the characters used them to infiltrate a secret club engaged in some horrible evil practice. Nonetheless forgery is typically an illegal act (though at the moment I cant think of anything particular prohibiting it) Many skills are viable in my mind unless you encourage their use in a way that skirts the religions moral system (ie using forgery to get out of something you justly owe someone, like a mortgage)

What skills in particular should be added to the skillset? Lets assume we're going to add a more advanced version of reading/writing languages than D&D uses. Something that requires skill points to indicate proficiency. What other skills do we need?

Eric