Religion in Project Wish, How would religion be worked into the game Options

[echorev]

I was just wondering how religion would work in PW, whether there would be a set series of real "gods" that the players could or couldn't interact with, or if players could join different religions, or what religions and gods or demigods would do, or how different areas of the world would react to different religions. Religion is an incredibly powerful force in real life, and as this game is trying to simulate aspects of it, I thought I'd just throw this idea out there if anyone has any input. Thanks !

[joshpurple]

I believe this has been discussed a good bit, but -Cool Echorev , glad you are brave enough to bring it up! It can be such... a... big.. subject .

Some other threads on it; Good and Evil ( I think, I might have mixed these two threads up.. )

Another thread looking at it

When I checked the PW Wiki on it, I see it has been mentioned. So far it looks like PW will be implementing religion based on races ( I think ). So, you will find, for example; "Lizardmen; religion," "Gnomes; religion," etc. Which looks like that might be region based even? Example; "Humans in MV; religion," "Humans in the North Pole; religion," etc. Each region having it's races, cultures, religions, and other items (technology, magic?) mapped out by the World Concepts Team (I'm guessing ).

For me, I like the idea of presenting very specific items in relation to religion, -just to help narrow down the huge and general idea of religion. Umm... , like, Goblins in MV! Example; A sect of goblins that has gathered together in the underground of MV to worship FUNGUY, the Mushroom God. 13 goblins of 70 years+ in age create the Mushroom Elders, each Mushroom Elder has over ... 'X' amount of 'X' put into the study of Mushrooms (mushroom poison, food, magical mushrooms, summoning mushroom plants, speak with Mushrooms, Shapeshift into a giant mushroom, Spore power, etc.). 23 Goblins serve each Elder, with one goblin begin the 'Whip Master,' etc.

The goblins might speak/act as if there is ONLY ONE god, and that is, FUNGUY, -but you could just hack them up for being evil (if you were a snotty goody-good human ).

I'm not as much in favor of giant, bland "religions" that cover the whole game world & really only = different names for spells already in use ( now it's a 'prayer,' not a spell, see? <-- but, prayer is still a cool aspect, I'm not meaning to knock prayers).

Then there is the aspect of Game Mechanics. Currently I think it's good if we keep feeding in Concepts, -just to have an open mind when it comes to making choices on how the mechanics might work (And, presenting game mechanic concepts is cool too, nothing against that).

Not that I'm making any sense, or saying , "Once and for all!" < said in the voice of Futurama politician >

[uulonze]

Best not to implement. Will have big trouble if not handle properly.

[Pandra]

while I personally like the idea of devs controlling superior mobs to help advance game play, I think calling them gods is going to create serious up roar. There are going to be people who are offended by a select group calling themselves gods, even if it's just for the game and has no bearing on real world religions at all. There will be devs who unfortunatly let that title of 'god' go to their head, which will be very ugly for us. And there's people who will set out to grief any 'gods' currently on the server just so they can spin it into the devs picking on them.... seriously, I've seen it. People have strang psychology sometimes.

I would however love to hear people's thoughts on regional, racial or cult religions. Cult not being satan worshiping, but rather small groups of less than 100 people who devoutly worship one being who may or may not be a main stream god.

We're going to have to figure out how the religious system works, and to do that it's helpful to know what kind of religions players would be interested in for their characters.

Would you want regional religions, which anyone from a set region could worship, or racial religions which would obviously be racially based? What reward would a PC get for choosing a religion? Would there be any penalties? How indepth would players want the religion to go? Some players do like to hold in game weddings between PC characters.

[Dwilf]

We could have regional and racial gods or even neither.

We could have a list of things gods can have power over and give each god a few from the list that suit their personaltiy, a more powerful god could have greater power over its "domains" or even aquire a new domain to add to its repatoir. Characters can then serve the god they think best suits thier goals.

Pay tribute to whatever god is right at the time, eg. sailors and sea gods, hunters and god of the Hunt. No reason the hunter couldn't have been a sailor two days ago setting out to cross the sea to get to the lush jungle with the big hogs whos furs sell for a fortune in distant city.

[jaminben]

I think people could leave sacrifices, etc. at altars to certain gods, like before sailing, leave an offering at the sea god's altar out of fear that something bad will happen when you sail. Say you leave an offering to a god of healing, you will heal faster for some time, or leaving an offering to a god of war may make you do more damage for some time, etc. If this affects your abilities, i think it would be best if the player doesnt actually see something that looks like a buff that has 20 min, 30 seconds remaining, but let it be something behind the scenes that he doesn't see, but does affect his status if he pays close attention.

Another idea of praying may be that as a player develops his "spirituality" with a god, he will get more out of leaving offerings or praying at the altar. This way, a monk type class will actually do monkish things, like pray for his protection etc. The paladin and healing types would be better at what they do the more time they spend praying to their gods. It would be cool if their actions could also affect how much they get out of praying. Say a warrior prays to a "good" god, but goes and kills innocent people, he will not get much out of praying to that god, but he would get help from an "evil" god. Opposite for people who fight "evil," the good gods would help them.

Of course this can be applied to not just "good" and"evil," but gods of nature, that druids must pray to to get their power. I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to play the role of a healer, monk, paladin, druid, etc. that generally is supposed to have some sort of a relation with deities, you should have to spend time praying or doing religious activities if you want to develop those powers and use them effectively. If you spend time "learning" druid spells, you shouldn't be able to use them (at least not effectively) unless the nature gods let you. Likewise, a necromancer should have some sort of relation with a "god of death" type figure.

It would be neat if maybe some of the religious based powers varied with the specific god one worshipped, which would definitely vary from region to region. This could maybe lead to some "my god is better than your god" type conflict. Maybe we could see some crusades? Maybe some day a small group of powerful shamans appear who have been worshipping an ancient god? Just a few ideas

[echorev]

I like that idea jaminben, sort of implementing a 'praying' skill or something like that. also, the idea of sacrifices is good too... i like things where the player has to give a little to get something out of it. makes the game more balanced and prevents 'freebie' type of things.

[Exudos]

If you ask me, I think that having religions whom were CREATED by players would be largely benificial. I myself, being agnostic in real life, am only so because I don't really believe anything any religion has to say.
A player could create a religion, and it would be much like a subclass, with bonuses to such and such, and could also be like a guild, or only have roleplaying benifits... Anyway, I would also like to propose that they could Erect temples, by their own choice or whatever. Much like in the game SecondLife, I think that players should be able to construct buildings using a building toolkit, which would create yet another kind of...sub merchandise, if you're skilled at making buildings, you will be in high demand, and as you gain levels of some sort, you could gain access to new building tools, shapes, materials, whatever. Sorry, i'm getting off topic, but, I think for a fee, you should be able to build a religion, and much like it did on Earth, these small religions would eventually become larger, and might have wars... There might be some pretty idiotic religions made, but those would die out as the more serious religions made their way up. Chrisitianity started as a small cult, and look at it now... I think that players should be able to also maybe construct their deities? These could perhaps be summoned by priests to help them in battle, or help their little cities that might be based around a temple, with daily tasks such as farming... Anyhoo, yea, I think the game should allow for complete customization as far as religions go. You could use religions for sub classes, could use them as just fodder for roleplayers, could be used much like what the others have said, sacrifices and whatnot.

[MNZ]

I think that religion should not be a part of any game at all. Having gods, prayers to them/etc might (read will) hurt some people's feelings. And like pandra said, actually having GMs called gods will for sure raise problems. I say PW would be better off without any kind of prayer system.

[Jerky]

I don't think we should shy away from religion in game because it might piss people off. Screw that. I believe in giving gamers what they want, but not EVERYTHING that they want. Having an open development process does not mean we can do everything listed on the forums. Most games have developers who make decisions because they think players will like it. Sometimes, had the players known about said feature beforehand, they would have been opposed to it, but they liked it when they weren't expecting it.

About religion, most games have story lines including some sort of religion, especially RPG's. Religion is part of a world, and that is what we are creating. It is seems dumb to me to not put something in the game that could add to immersion. Keep in mind, PW will be a game unlike other games you have played. Sometimes this means thinking outside the box.

What we should avoid, is forcing players to have to do anything with said religions. There shouldn't be any advantage to their character being "religious" compared to another character who is not. There could be benefits, but there would have to be alternatives to gain the same benefit in other non-religious ways. As with most ideas on the forums, they can be done, if done properly. For religion, as an example, to be done right we would need to allow praying to gods, praying to devils, praying to nature, and not praying at all.

Thats my take on it. Any idea sounding like what America does in politics sounds like a bad idea to me, religion is no exception to that. A game allowing freedom, should allow freedom. This includes the right to worship and the right to not worship. I know it sounds corny, but trust me, it will make a difference.

[MNZ]

If you have to have some kind of religion for the sake of backstories or whatever then that's alright, but the main point as you said is not having it a must and certainly not giving 'religious' people any kind of high benefits.

[joshpurple]

(There can be so much to this topic )

Staying on a very general & 'light' side of things, I'm happy to see 'fantasy religions' in game, but not so much Religion in-game.

I Hope that makes sense? So I have no problem with lots of evil, nasty, scary looking cults, evil gods, or wonderfully loving gods, etc. But I don't want minors to be 'approached' in-game by a group of "the Church of So and So," -which happens to be a real life religion & is 'Ad Botting' in-game.

Edit: More simply put, "no soliciting."

[Pandra]

Don't worry Josh <3 You already know my stance on 'real' religion, politics, or anything that smacks od racism in a fantasy setting. It does not work and it breaks immersion. Other wise Jerky pretty much said everything I was gonna say. We hope to give players options on how to play, but not force them to play in away they don't want too. The option for religion will be there, but it won't be a requirment to play and enjoy the game. Being a player of healers and pristesses in many on-line games I readily admit I like fantasy religions, I like how they round out my characters. Being largely pagan in real life it's interesting to me to play the role of a devout priestess or faithful healer. That's probably also why I can't get into druid or ranger types that's too much like real life.

[Alexander]

Again is see a lot of posts but nobody is really getting wiser. Here I go again with my ranting then.

There are many types or religions in fantasy games just as there are many different types of gods and that what kind of things people actually prey to. Some people don’t even really pray to a god but just a powerful supernatural force or creature without any divine aspects and therefore unable to actually give its followers real spells. Still people can pray to anything they want.

To implement gods and religion in the game I would say give your players that ability to worship any creature or object you come across, whether it is off any benefit to them is something they’ll have to find out on their own. Also give them the ability to worship principles to which they have knowledge of such as the creator gods of a different race or the stellar constellations.

Naturally not everything they pray too is be going to give them spells or their favour or might not even have any effect at all.

Example things you can worship that have actual game effects:

Over deity’s: The god(s) who created the gods and the universe or multiverse. Does he really exist? Doe they grand spells? Who knows if they even still concern themselves with mortal affairs. They can’t be worshiped but few even know if they exist if they do as all. Nobody knows what they grant if anything.

Creator gods: The creator god or gods of a race are obviously real as they provide their devote followers with divine magic abilities and spells whether they walk the moral world or not their presence is felt.

Moral and Principle gods: Gods of good and evil, the sun, of roads and travel, of the ocean or the wind, of luck, or warfare or battle honour, or the sky, of rain, of snow, of the mountains. These are the type of gods that stand for principles or aspects of the world and morals or practices. Any race can worship them and receive their divine guidance and spells but only if they further the gods goals.

Greater Demons and Devil Princesses: Alto not true deity’s and unable to give spells to their followers they are worshiped nonetheless and sometimes that can respond to sacrifices. Their gifts are more direct, mutations of power of sorcerers ability, demon blood or even magical items can be won if you are favoured enough. Alto not on our plane of existence they can sometimes step between worlds to bestow their gifts before they depart again.

Supernatural Creatures: Stray elementals of huge size and power, benevolent fey, ancestral spirits, all these and many more sometimes receive donations and prayers of respect for people or small communities or perhaps even single noble families. Alto they are even less capable of giving powerful gifts back they can return the favour by means of revealing old secret knowledge, a unseen helping hand in daily tasks, the casting of a spell at the right time and place or they might protect the families against harm as unseen guards of the mansion.

There are tons of creatures and actual gods that can be the centre point of a religion and don’t forget that sometimes a cult doesn’t even have to have a real creature to worship, sometimes its nothing more then an ideal or an illusion that offers nothing but is just as powerful a tool and any real god.

How you implement them is a simple matter of choice, if you want real gods to wander around them be sure to make them feel like god and be careful of who you allow to control them. It would be cool to have them walk around but why would you? You can just as easily have to remain this mysterious force of beyond until the time you do let one make its appearance even if it’s just his avatar. It would be a sign that the gods are real and can if they wanted invade our world but to what end? No better keep them safely in outer-planes until the time is right.

---

How to win favour?

Easy, prayer is the simplest way, do it everyday and your god will be pleased enough to offer your some basic spells, nothing dramatic and nothing that will save your hide. Usually these are community spells that help others with daily life. Only when you start to perform quests for your god (tailor make for each faith by GM and constantly more added even in context to the grand storyline) that you gain even greater favour and more powerful spells.

Divine spells could be the shortcut in magic. Where hours of study are needed in arcane spells before something is learned or mastered the gods’ grand spells merely for prayer. Different spells if you thing logically and every god will offer its own unique set of spells, evil gods will cause pain while good ones heal.

Eventually you can give every character a divine rating with each god as a hidden attribute for a quest system. Some gods will always directly oppose others and the slaying of their believers and clerics is a good way to gain higher favour, if these statistics are know a automated quest system can be invented that sends out faithful players whenever opponents of the faith are near.

But mostly daily tasks and how you go about your life is what improves your standing with a god. Certain actions are seen as good while others are seen as bad for the faith. The more you live your life right the higher to climb.