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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5048287" data-attributes="member: 54707">Yes, that's true. Miracles aren't usually repeatable, but can be, under certain circumstances. And they can often re-remerge in different forms, but with the same general impact. Manna from Heaven (God feeding people directly), Jesus feeding the thousands, though the food was already available, just in very short supply compared to need. So in both cases you have the hungry being fed, in one case directly through the agency of a sort of hybrid supernatural-natural phenomenon, in the other cases through a natural phenomenon (bread an fish) being supernaturally amplified by Jesus. It's a fascinating of juxta-positionings. One can automatically see the relationships, but the means and methods and even the implements and parties vary.There is I think an important principle or clue you've hit upon here that I can't quite put my finger on, but that I intuitively perceive what you are saying as being right in some way. Perhaps it is linked to "survival miracles, or sustaining miracles" and perhaps it would be better to think of miracles as having "categories of operation, or function." Of course I know that is a sort of modern, scientific mania as well, or at least a mania to make technical - the impulsive need to categorize, but nevertheless it could very well be true, that miracles fall into categories depending upon desired effect and other factors. But there is something about what you implied that strikes me as very interesting. But I can't quite define yet what I think all of the implications are. I'll have to think more on that.I've never quite thought of it in precisely that way before, but to me what you seem to be saying is that not only does a miracle have a "pragmatic effect" (a intentional end) but that part of that end is psychological and historical impact. That is to say the fame of the miracle is not an after-effect, or a side-effect, but an intentional and perhaps even necessary competent of the Act itself. That's also interesting to me, and something to think on. Which again brings up the point of repeatability, but in the opposite direction of what you mentioned before. Maybe the idea is to create something "Unique to the given situation," but with "Universal appeal, that can be recognized again when it appears in another form or variation." It has occurred to me before that miracles follow certain Themes for lack of a better term, as well as Expressions depending upon the culture they manifest within and what the purpose of the miracle might really be. (Though I also feel quite certain that miracles can have either multiple, or even secret and covert meanings, as well as possibly both.)I think this is an interesting set of observations. Especially the part about ritual training be a method of "perception of God or gods at work in the world."So both Clerics and Wizards "train" but to different ends.I also think these are interesting observations. Again I'm not sure at all that most miracles are "recipient, or worker, do nothing" miracles, but perhaps it can be said that the recipient often does things that do not seem directly related to the ultimate or end-result. For instance just the act of asking for help can be considered effort, and depending upon level of sincerity might require great effort from that individual. I agree though that in some cases miracles seem totally devoid of standard or normal cause and effect relationships. (On a little side-note I also think you seem to be implying that if a person asks a deity "for help" and not anything in specific and the deity answers with something useful or maybe even salvific, but unexpected, that this is miraculous, whereas if they ask for something specific and small and are granted this, this is just answered prayer, or in game terms, magic. If I read you right then this is an interesting idea as well, a sort of hierarchy of Divine service, extending from the easy to achieve and the mundane to the impossible - not totally of course, for if it happens then by definition it is not really impossible but just had been previously thought impossible - and totally unexpected. )I also have to agree that as far as fantasy game clerics go most do not perform Miracles at all or at least only extremely rarely, but rather "programmed magic" with a different emphasis or intended effect than that of arcane magic. So that in effect it merely becomes "divine magic" rather than Miraculous effect.That is to say, let's use the Judeo-Christian background by way of example, that there is a definite quality to the workings of the Prophets and the Apostles which is far more "miraculous" and un-programmed and un-expected (the first time you encounter them) than is the pseudo-scientific, programmed, technical nature of the D&D cleric and the functions he performs.I'd like to see Miraculous Clerics and Monks and Hermits in the game, who are far closer in nature and method of the Prophets and Apostles than they are to Wizards and Scientists, but I'm still working on that and am not aware of any other game in which "the miraculous" is a real component of the "clerical nature of fantasy game characters."If there is such a game, where Miracle is more a function of the Cleric than merely a variation on Magic, then I'd like to hear about it. Well, back to work.</blockquote>

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