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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8278892" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what the criterion is for faithfully portray? Does The End of the Affair faithfully portray Catholicism? Well, it does faithfully convey the convictions of at least one Catholic - it's author!Leonard Cohen, in his song Suzanne, tells us that "Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water, and he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower; and when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him he said, 'All men will be sailors then, until the see shall free them'". Cohen himself was not Christian; I don't know if, when he wrote those words, he believed in God at all. But I don't think that means he was wrong to write his song, and to try to convey an idea of the relationship of Christ to humanity (both his own, and that of everyone else).When I think of real religions in RPGing, there are a lot of ways of approaching it. One of those is a historically accurate description of what was typical of adherents in a certain past time and place; of course that is quite compatible with scepticism or atheism on the part of the game designer and game participants! Another is a presentation of religion, or religious ideas, that does the same sort of artistic work as Mallory (whom you mentioned upthread) or Greene or Cohen or the Evanescence song Tourniquet. This is consistent with unbelief also (qv Cohen) but might be seen as an attempt to "think inside" a certain religious idea or ideal. Just as in literature, or film, or the visual arts, so in RPGing we can ask whether historical authenticity helps, or even is essential, to truly understanding a particular religious ideal, but I think inevitably this is something on which opinions will differ. Star Wars's presentation of certain Daoist and Zen ideas is obviously a little bowdlerised, but I don't think that rules it out of bounds!</blockquote>

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