Introducing role-playing to people from other cultures and religions

[Jürgen Hubert]

This is the best advice yet. Don't assume that the player will have problems due to his religion/ethnicity/whatever. Just introduce him to the game concepts as you would anyone else who is completely new to the genre, and see if he brings up anything himself.

As it happens, he brought it up almost immediately - with the result that we will be using GURPS instead of D&D and use the setting of Yrth (soon to be republished in GURPS Banestorm), since that uses real world religions in a fantasy world.

Oh, well...

 

[fusangite]

As it happens, he brought it up almost immediately - with the result that we will be using GURPS instead of D&D and use the setting of Yrth (soon to be republished in GURPS Banestorm), since that uses real world religions in a fantasy world.

Oh, well...

I'm a little baffled here. I know you can't speak for this player but I'm curious as to why anyone would find fictionalized religions more sacreligious than modeling real world religions with GURPS.

 

[Greylock]

I have to agree with Fusangite here. It has me scratching my head. I can think of several reasons why this would actually be the worse option.

But what the heck, it gets the game going and new players in, so good on ya...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'm a little baffled here. I know you can't speak for this player but I'm curious as to why anyone would find fictionalized religions more sacreligious than modeling real world religions with GURPS.

Since he is a newbie, I guess he still doesn't fully grasp the divide between the "character" and the "player" yet.

Besides, the religions in Yrth are mostly ones that exist in the real world - they (along with their adherents) have just been transplanted to a fantasy world (thanks to a magical accident, numerous humans have been teleported there from Earth, circa 1050 AD).

 

[WayneLigon]

....she has very little concept of Western fantasy and many of the things we take for granted are unknown to her (vampires, for one, I had a tough time explaining Buffy to her...)

Man, just go to Blockbuster and make up a few movie theme nights: Vampire, Zombie, Witch, Werewolf, Frankenstein, Mummy.... She'll be up to speed in no time.

 

[Voadam]

Since he is a newbie, I guess he still doesn't fully grasp the divide between the "character" and the "player" yet.

Besides, the religions in Yrth are mostly ones that exist in the real world - they (along with their adherents) have just been transplanted to a fantasy world (thanks to a magical accident, numerous humans have been teleported there from Earth, circa 1050 AD).

I can see a person reasonably being uncomfortable with roleplaying an adherent of a different religion, whether real or made up.

If you are happy running GURPS then run with it.

Is he going to play one of those lizard men who converted to islam?

Or are you going to run it as the PCs are modern humans who got caught in a Banestorm (is that the term?) and now must deal with a magical world?

 

[Li Shenron]

For his own comfort, I'd suggest that you keep RL religion well out of the setting. No real-world gods in other worlds, best to keep the game entirely fictional.

For your own comfort, I may not run an Al-Qadim adventure... your player probably knows more than you about arabian legends, and if Al-Qadim makes some mistake (I have no idea how much of it is based on real-world legends) you may be in an embarassing position

 

[pdkoning]

I'm a little baffled here. I know you can't speak for this player but I'm curious as to why anyone would find fictionalized religions more sacreligious than modeling real world religions with GURPS.

The problem is often, that devote believers don't like to worship anyone / anything else than their own god. They even don't like 'their' characters to worship Torm or Illmater or whatever...

So for some of those people, real-life religion in an RPG helps. If you introduce (let's say a christian) into gaming, he might be more happy with the fact that the game takes place in a Medieval world were his character can worship the chrisitian God. When you say: hey look here and pick one -> [Deities and Demigods] he might not like that.
Some (Christians and Muslims alike) however, would not like the fact that you use 'their God' in a game at all.

I would not emphasize the religious thing of D&D too much and let the new players choose what they think is appropriate, if they want to worhsip Allah in-game, just let them do so.
You might also consider going with a low-magic or no-magic setting so they don't have to worry about magic and the source of magic either. Some mainstream real-life religions forbid the use of magic.

Being a theology student and gamer I know a lot about what people tend to accept and what not. I do not wish to offend anyones believe, so if you don't agree with the above, just ignore it.