Character Religion variable?

[Kvetch]

You know, the more variables we have on players, the more varied the quests and scripts can be.  Current thought was something that is sort of off something that was discussed a while back - though it was off topic for that topic (the original topic this was under was Character Balancing).

What about players being able to follow a god - of course a list of gods would have to be created that players could follow.  For examples of that list, I quote Molly from the aforementioned topic:

Quote:
I'd make the Deity of Medieval some kind of religious order for the Crusaders, for instance the Temple Knights, which did exist. Possibly we could also have some Muslim ordery, (not Allah or Mohammed directly, since that might offend real Muslims), but something historic, maybe Follower of Saladdin. And possibly you could worship the devil too.
You could also choose to follow any of the existing Barons and Knights as a Squire, (like Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad or the Robber Baron).

In Pre, we could just use the existing Greek and Egypt Gods - all of them already have their temples and properties, so that would be an easy adaption. There are both good and bad deities to choose from, but most of them were a bit... ambiguous.

Old West, hmm... I think Cthulhu is a 19th century goth fantasy, if you want to go for evil. Or maybe Dracula or Mirkheim, for vampires.
The 'good' ones could just be common, god-fearing Republicans and follow the local preacher. :-P
Otherwise the deputy/sheriff, versus outlaws idea works fine for me. You could for instance follow the Wild Bunch in Hole in the Wall, or any of the existing marshals. (i actually had a quest for this planned in the past, that I never got around to implement.
And wasn't the Indian deity called Manitou?

Future I am not so sure about. Jedi and Dark Jedi would have the been natural choice, if we hadn't already got the DJ Clan.
We could of course invent some obscure local deities for various planets. The only one I know of so far is Herbie, on Yudore. I'd rather like him as a deity, he's a funny guy.
Or you could follow the Robert Young Space Cadets, I already have a quest for that in the making for other things. Then there could be a band of Space bandits, for the evil.

[End quote]
The reason I bring this up is partly because I'd like undead to only be affected by crosses only if the player truely believes in the power of the cross - or perhaps in this version represented by the god they choose to follow (if they follow a good god, they could "turn" - or whatever - the undead by the wielding of the cross.  If they follow an "evil" god, perhaps they would have some other power.  If they have no god, then the undead shrugs at the cross and continues to attack with a vengence).  Perhaps this is more of a way to make alignment in one way or another "stable" while in the other it isn't as stable.  I'd not want people to be able to change gods easily - perhaps the first god choice is free, but if you want to change gods, the god you want to follow would have some long drawn out quest for you to do.

Just a thought as I was driving home.

[Virisin]

Depends on what kind of bonuses you get as a follower, and how hard it is to be a follower and what if anything you have to do to stay a follower. Will the harder to find gods like Seti give better bonuses? I don't think it'd be a good idea, but I think it'd be weird if Seti gave the same kind of bonuses as Robber Baron.

I'll think about it for a while and give a real opinion.

[Tocharaeh]

This isn't any new idea, and I saw it as a coming subject. I've been asking for a belief system for a while now. Here is how I think it should work.


1) We need a "Balanced" God list. Say two or three of a specific alignment (Good, Neutral, Evil).
2) No crosses. That's purely a christian thing as a holy symbol. What they should be are (hehe) Holy Symbol of (God).
3) Holy Symbols should only be created by a priest.
4) Holy symbols shouldn't give anything more than a simple hr bonus with the ability to cast bless on oneself or another like a wand, however it is only chargeable by praying..and you have a %age chance of success that the God/Godess will hear and grand your prayers.
5) There should be a Favor system where players must sacrifice and/or donate things to "please" their Gods. This should mostly play in as a Priest specific thing. The greater the deity favor, the better a priests spell benefits will be. For all other classes, there would be a higher gold drop rate than normal or some such thing.
6) One must practice their faith: This means praying, and other such things like visiting temples/shrines and some such stuff. If they do not practice, then their faith %age drops. If you become completely complacent in the faith, eventually you'll become faithless, and must RP your way back into the faith or into a new one.
7) All faiths must be RP based. Therefore, players must have the RP flag in order to join a following. In order to change faith, one must RP, and post the stories on the forums to show the trials and tribulations they went through to come intimately close to their deity.

I'd like to stress the point that deities worshiped by players should by no means be that of existing MOBs in the game. If we were to have someone worshiping Poseidon, and another asshole goes and beheads the mob...then essentially they now have bragging rights to killing a players God. This is a no-no. Actually, in RP muds this has always been a no no. Gods within the game should be intangible, and un-locatable. They do not exist, ever. Unless of course an IMM PLAYS the Deity from time to time. Otherwise they are NULL and exist only through basic faith encoding, and RP.

 

[Kvetch]

7) All faiths must be RP based. Therefore, players must have the RP flag in order to join a following. In order to change faith, one must RP, and post the stories on the forums to show the trials and tribulations they went through to come intimately close to their deity.

OH gah, no.  If this is a requirement than please, just forget it.  I don't want anything in the game that gives bonuses that HAS to be rped - with the lack of active people to rp with and the fact that you have to copy/paste/post/blah blah blah.. no.  I like things that are forced rp as much as I like things that are forced pk.

[Tocharaeh]

I think you completely missed the point of actually having the rp aspect required.
First off, we have an RP flag that isn't truly implemented anymore. It should be, but so many forget that it even exists, and the rp requirement to enter certain zones have been removed. I believe it is a travesty that needs to be mended.

Deity worship is no more OOC as Estidn's rp group.

Worship is a choice. It's not forced at all. I think that people like to throw around "forced rp" because they THINK they understand what that actually means. Forced RP is to causing something in RP to happen that another RPer has no options for counter measures.

"Jonny casts prismatic sphere"
"billy casts a super super magic missile attack and pierces th sphere, killing Jonny!"

THAT is forced rp people. Requiring people to get a friggin RP flag in order to follow a deity is NOT.

As for making people go through a bunch of automated quests to change deities, screw that. We have RPL's for a friggin reason. USE them. People should be willing to RP their way out of a faith and into a new one, why? Because it STOPS faith jumping.

But hey, I'm willing to compromise. Either they RP, or they cough up a few tokens. Also, I think that if they drop a faith (by paying a token), they become a heretic, and cannot join another faith for a priod of time. Hey, does this sound familiar? Hehehe, it's the same thing for PK.

Faith jumping is no more different than clan hopping. They both have their own respective benefits and disadvantages. If we're going to bring in bonuses to people based on their faith, they had better be willing to deal with the commitment behind it. If we don't create boundaries, then we FOSTER inconsistency, and laziness.

Speaking of bonuses. I think that each deity should only grant a single +1 bonus to ONE SPHERE. No +3 to backstab, or +5 DR. Just a simple +1 to a given sphere the deity identifies with.

Here is a pretty picture:


This is just a very simple example of how the deities should be balanced. We currently have 10 spheres, but we going to drop them down to 6 or 8.  We can just one deity from the evil section, since Cthulhu and Lolth basically encompass all that is evil (hehehehe), and bam, we have 8 deities for 8 respective spheres. Cthulhu would give +1 to the psychic sphere.

Anyway, that is my take on it all. I think if you want an RP aspect added to your character, you should have the RP flag. RP flags don't get you hunted and killed like PK flags do. So don't bother trying to compare the two. It's unfair. However, we have the flags and we have the dedicated people (our RPL's) who are willing to do whatever. USE our resources, don't ignore them like usual.

[Kvetch]

Ok, I'm tired of being made to feel like an idiot because I don't use the same terminology you do.  YES, I DO know what "forced rp" means, ya don't have to explain it to me like I'm a 5 year old - thank you very much. But, so you can understand my point, I will explain it to YOU as if you were a 5 year old.  My point is this: I hate anything that requires you to become an RPer (this would be my "forced <to become> rp") that gives benefits to those that have an rp flag as much as I hate anything that is pk only (or "forced <to become> pk") and gives benefits to only those that have a pk flag.  My thoughts on religion had to do with something that all could do and not be forced to rp in and out of religions.  When was the last time an RPL ran something (other than the current alien quest that's been automated so you can)?  It just seems difficult these days to get rpl's to do something - though part of that could be the lack of player base, but what about things like Sar's stuff one on one?  Some people would like to RP, but don't see the oppertunity.  But now I'm getting off track.  Sorry I didn't explain my point in detail to you sooner and left out those words that obviously were needed to be in there so you could understand.

[Tocharaeh]

Wow, nothing like getting nasty on the forums Kvetch. Good job. I remained civil the entire time, but sadly you couldn't follow suit. Had to feel insulted eh? Oh well, I'll deal with it.

I think yet again you've completely missed my point. Nobody should get any kind of benefits without doing some work. While YOU may be happy with giving out free handouts, I am not. Tell me, what benefits do PK's reap from being PK? Aside from only being able to loot each other, and be in a constant event of danger- that's about it. However when religion is involved not a single person has any negatives. Just positives? No, come on. Everything that IS 4D requires a level of effort. Everything. You tell me one benefit reaping thing aspect that doesn't require a little time from a player. I know I certainly can't. Need an omega sword? Gotta kill Voltron. Need the ability to get a PK flag, or removal of one? Gotta pay a token----need a token? Go quest. See where I'm going with this? EVERYTHING that is integral to 4D life requires effort. Not a single thing should be free. Not one.


What is so wrong with requiring a player to write up a tiny story to post on the rp board, or include in their background story? Personally, I don't see a single thing wrong with it. It would just make the player identify with that religion more closely than before. It ENCOURAGES some level of RP.

And finally. In defense to all RPL's who you are so quick to scorn. I am going to point out the simple fact that it DOES come down to the player base lack of interest. Why? Because reward points are pointless, and mean squat. You can't even earn more than a pretitle, and a  login/logout. Everything was never finished being coded in. ALSO, the prices are too high, and it takes forever to earn enough points. It would require quite literally and RP event EVERY FRIGGIN DAY. Not even *I*, an RP fanatic, see the point in it. It's an incomplete system that will get fixed later on anyhow, so I'm not worried. But in order to make use of the systems, you HAVE to implement more RP related aspects of 4D otherwise you have yet another wasteful addition to our code that will never get used.

[Virisin]

I'm not reading all this yet.. But I hate RP only zones and am glad they're gone. I hate all 'strict' RP with documented logs and things.

[Asmodeus]

While this religion thing might be a cool idea, keep in mind a few things.  Not to be a "glass is half empty" sort of person, but our player base is -obviously- pretty small, and pwipe/updates/new systems or not, I don't see it getting much bigger... Maybe for a bit, but it's still a mud - a dying breed of game. That being said, there are obviously a lot of other things that need to be taken care of before this.

But sticking onthis topic, and keeping in mind the player base size, do we really need 8 or 9 dieties? Seems to me with that many, you'll get 2 people on each, or a bunch of players on a few leaving the others high and dry.

Plus, I'm curious if this is even something many players would want to get their character involved in. I mean, I don't think I'd want asmo involved rp wise... But there is A stat bonus, so I feel like I have to just for that, no matter how small it is... Any advantage stat-wise will pull players (at times I like loner characters, but stats on a clan crest, as well as some other perks keep me going back)

also, bring on religion wars and slams if this takes off!