"cosmology and theology in fantasy rules" Topic

When I first published PRIDE OF LIONS, there was some blowback from folks about my use of -- and defense of -- prayer as a powerful type of "magic." Basically I wrote that magic may be fictional but prayer is, in my experience, very real. And so needed to be included in a set of fantasy mass battle rules, or at least included in MINE.

I'm now preparing the second edition of PRIDE, and the section on prayer will be expanded a good bit, although with increased emphasis on a church's offices and ceremonies and gifts. (This is not the Christian church, since this is not our world, but it is, or rather they are, organizations of believers in ethical monotheism.)

So I doubt anyone who disliked the first edition on that score will be much happier with second. But I do want to make clear, if I can, that I'm not trying to impose my own theology on anyone, except that a coherent fantasy world has to be based on SOME theory of reality and these rules are based on mine.

To that end, I'm thinking about adding the following as an introduction to the rules section on magic. I'm cross-posting this to game design, and I'm interested in feedback on that topic in particular.

Here it is:

A word about cosmology and theology:

People are, of course, free to believe whatever they wish. A materialist is as free to play a game of fantasy battles as anyone – but if the game is to have spirits and gods and other supernatural and non-material yet real-in-the-game beings in it, then it cannot itself be based on materialist assumptions. I attempt below to describe my own view of reality – or of the "reality" of my own imaginary world – because any rules have to be based on SOME cosmological and theological assumptions, and these rules are based on mine. I try, in the section on each magic type, to explain my vision of what it is and where it comes from. Players are of course free to replace my own vision with their own – and I describe mine precisely so as to enable them to do so if they wish – but doing so will also change how the rules work, or else undercut their rationale.

For example, I equate the "mana" that shamans draw upon to electricity in our world, which is why most shamanic spell effects last only a single turn and cannot directly affect thoughts or emotions. I assume runes draw their power from the solid earth and so are less effective on water and MUCH less effective when flying – which is why dwarven balloonboats have a short operational radius. I assume demons and gods, principalities and powers, exist and can exert their will within the world. And I assume that a Creator God who is omniscient and omnipotent and ultimately sovereign remains actively involved in his creation, responding to prayers when he chooses.

Players who prefer to downplay or ignore any or all of these assumptions may of course do as they please, but they will then need to ignore or redesign the corresponding elements of the game system.

Here is the problem with including prayer in a game. Prayer is real. If you are a Christian you are prohibited from praying to a false god. It probably isn't a defense to say, when you meet your maker "It was only a game". Gods tend not to have a sense of humor about their acolytes. Many years ago a preacher, Tom Wirsing, wrote a very eloquent piece in MWAN about the subject. If I can't find it I'll see if I can get Tom to respond to this. I'm hoping it hangs around but fully expect it to get moved to the Blue Fez or simply axed. We do have a rule about discussing religion and I don't see a way to discuss faux religions without bringing real religion and its strictures on its adherents into the conversation. Perhaps if we keep away from the "my religion is better than your religion" folks we can have an intelligent discussion of the matter at hand.

It seems to me that the player would not be praying to a false god -- his character would be praying to his character's god.

If we can't accept that step removed from reality, then does that mean a Christian actor would not be able to portray a role in a movie or play in which the character he plays prays to that character's god?

I always treated cleric "spells" in AD&D and similar roleplaying games as "prayers". After all, the cleric was granted the power to do whatever strange stuff s/he did (healing, turning undead and so on) as a gift from his/her deity. Seemed logical and internally consistent, and made them different from wizards/mages etc.

Here is the problem with including prayer in a game. Prayer is real. If you are a Christian you are prohibited from praying to a false god. It probably isn't a defense to say, when you meet your maker "It was only a game". Gods tend not to have a sense of humor about their acolytes.

I'm sorry, but that's just an utterly indefensibly ridiculous statement. Are you seriously attempting to suggest that a real world Christian is somehow in moral trouble by playing a fictional character who happens to be a fictional devotee of a fictional deity and who is granted fictional blessings on the utterance of fictional prayers?

A Christian playing an Elven cleric who has his character pray to the God of the Elves or the Spirits of the Trees or whatever is somehow on "shaky ground" faith-wise?

Seriously?

I think this would be a good place for the 'why it works this way' sidebar.

Keep the mechanical description purely effects-based. What is prayer? A request for divine intervention. XYZ request can give you A, B, or C results. Then you can put the flavortext into the individual spell/prayer descriptions.

Mikhail, I think I remember that piece in MWAN and I think I responded to it myself.

Because I share your concern, I wrote this in PRIDE:

Author's Note: It is challenging to write rules for prayer in a game, and dangerous to do so in a rules section titled "Magic." God is real, and really answers prayers. I prayed for something major and specific in the morning, almost idly and in a spirit of "it'd be nice if I could have this, but there's no way it's gonna happen," and then received it that afternoon, from a completely unexpected direction. God answers prayer, often affirmatively, but not necessarily in the fashion the petitioner expects. Anyone who doubts that God has a sense of humor in answering prayer should read Matthew 17:24-26 and imagine Peter's reaction. God helps us, but often not in the way we expect or ask for. God cannot be forced to answer prayer, except in the sense that a loving human father might allow his young child to tell him to do something and then do it.

God sometimes establishes religious institutions and hierarchies, and grants them power. And the individual humans, the priests and popes and others, who hold these offices are always sinners and sometimes do things God does not approve. Is the prayer of a high priest or pope more likely to be answered than the earnest prayer of any good man? Perhaps not. But we are dealing here in these rules with warfare, which is a corporate rather than an individual act, and we will therefore assume that priests and bishops and the like are speaking TO God on behalf of their congregation, and/or FOR God to His people, in the context of a military and political decision that involves and affects everyone. We assume, as well, that God is less likely to intervene in any direct and obviously miraculous way when His followers are fighting each other, or for mundane or selfish causes; but if they are battling some great evil, God may provide great help.

Ethical monotheists worship the God Who is sovereign and good. He can obliterate entire armies, as when Moses parted the sea or when the angel of death slew Sennacherib's host. These acts, however, cannot be simulated in a fair and enjoyable wargame.

God also can give a victory to His champions, as when David slew Goliath or when Jonathan and his armor bearer alone routed a Philistine force. God may protect His prophets from physical attack and give them victory over wizards and pagan priests. God may use His saints to give an army a miraculous victory, as with Saint Joan of Arc.

However, God's plan and purposes transcend human understanding, and His people sometimes suffer defeat. The Arc of the Covenant gave the Israelites victory until they took it for granted; then it didn't. King Louis of France may have been a saint, but his army was defeated on crusade.

While God CAN give victory to either side at any time, we assume, in the context of these rules and games played using them, that it is God's will that battle occur and that His worshippers rely primarily on their own wits and strengths.

(The rules then give a system for prayer as a game mechanism.)

I was and am nervous enough about the issue you raise to include that section -- but I also agree with Starfury, and I had my rules "vetted" by my minister whose son plays games with them. He basically agreed with Starfury too.

But it is a tricky question.

If we can't accept that step removed from reality, then does that mean a Christian actor would not be able to portray a role in a movie or play in which the character he plays prays to that character's god?

Don't REALLY want to get into this argument, but just to dip my toe in, I think this view is the only reasonable theological tact- if acting/writing/pretending/etc is viewed as the same as actually performing the act then that basically eliminates the ability to engage in fiction at all.

-Will

Lion,yes, and to some extent I am taking that approach in second edition. There is still prayer, but there is also much more use of other mechanisms. Some of these are based on religious ceremony and ritual -- as in a group of monks chanting and thereby creating a circle of holiness within which enemy spirits and magic, undead, etc. are either prohibited or less effective. Others are "gifts" -- what we Christians call "gifts of the spirit" or "spiritual gifts" except these include an ability to work physical effects under the authority and blessing of the church; so a Lumens can absorb and release sunlight, a firewarden can give a unit flaming swords or protect it with a wall of flame. etc. These are essentially shamans consecrated by the church; shamanic magic is natural and so morally neutral, but godfearers' gifts have a heavenly component added.

Will, I agree, and of course Starfury is correct; a Christian actress could certainly play one of the witches in Macbeth without spiritual harm.

I hope the thread will indeed be kept and also be approached with restraint and good will, as all above have done. Because I think it really is a valid concern and question when anyone is creating through fiction or drama or scripts or whatever.

I used to play Runequest a lot and had no problem playing a Lightbringer or Humakti or Yelmalio -- all honorable gods. And I always understtod, and assumed everyone else understood, that what von Ewald wrote is correct; this is fiction, and we all know it.

However, I must say, I would not play, or allow anyone in a game I was running, to play a follower of Vivamort or Thed or any of the evil gods. Following Shakespeare's script as a witch in Macbeth is one thing; playing an wicked role freeform is altogether too close to wishing to be what one is pretending.

However, I must say, I would not play, or allow anyone in a game I was running, to play a follower of Vivamort or Thed or any of the evil gods. Following Shakespeare's script as a witch in Macbeth is one thing; playing an wicked role freeform is altogether too close to wishing to be what one is pretending.

The "party of evil PCs" in roleplaying games is something that I tended not to encourage, mainly because the players in such games tend to work against each other more often than not and it made for poor gaming overall.

That said, the DM/GM has to play the bad guys in an RPG. The thing's sort of pointless without 'em.

I'm also interested in responses to the question of cosmological and theological undergirdings of ANY fantasy rules, or at least of any fantasy rules which assume the existence/reality of magic and supernatural or "unnatural" (i.e. undead) elements.

I understand what Lion in the Stars is saying: keep the rules mechanisms just that, neutral procedures expressed strictly in terms of game effects, with the worldview in a sidebar (presumably where those who want to can ignore it).

I'm just not sure that is actually POSSIBLE.

It doesn't have to be about prayer. Take vampires. If you write rules for them, don't you have to have already decided what the vampire reality is in your game world? Dracula? Buffy's Angel and Spike, with souls? Edward? (Please, NOOOO!!!!!) And shouldn't the game designer SAY how he interprets vamps -- and particularly so that those who interpret them differently can understand what view of vampire reality undergirds the rule system?

Von E, yes, and I will generally play the bad guys whenever I play with children, on the possibly unwarrented assumption that I am more mature and therefore better able to keep fact and fiction separated.

But I've done Battle of Five Armies with kids playing goblins, I suppose because I assume they know who the bad guys ARE. (You can't always tell who the good guys are, but you can ALWAYS tell the bad guys!)

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I quite admire the four-fold model put forward by Ramsey Dukes in his book S.S.O.T.B.M.E. (The Mouse that Spins, revised edition 2001).

Dukes regards the categories of art, science, religion and magic as contrasting "directions" of human thought. Classifying these on the axes of "Feeling" vs "Thinking" and "Intuition" vs "Sensation" gives, in this scheme:

Art -- in the direction of feeling and intuition
Religion -- in the direction of intuition and thinking
Science -- in the direction of thinking and sensation
Magic -- in the direction of sensation and feeling

The argument as to whether it is religion or magic that is "real" depends, in this model, on whether one considers reality to be discovered by thought or by sensation.

Whatever model you choose to follow, I think it is always a very good idea to explain your reasoning to the players in designer's notes. I love reading designer's notes, and have never yet met a set that I thought were too long or too detailed.

Now I am wondering why fantasy games always include magicians and clerics, but never artists and scientists…

All the best,

John.

Ah, but the rules writer HIMSELF is either an artist or a scientist.

And we've had THAT thread recently, I believe!

Seriously, that is an excellent question.

And I'll have to think about Dukes' categories.

doc, many many RPG's use effect based magic/prayer without having a backstory beyond the authors "It's that way because I said so." Religion is such a touchy subject I can't see any reason to inject it into an RPG in any fashion. The end result of a players action will be the same whether he simply reads a sentence that says "You may cause the target of your attack to slow down by 5" a turn" than if you say "You must pray to Morc since he is the god of speed in order to slow down your opponent." Since the effect it going to be the same there seems to be no reason to include the religious part of the sentence.

Yes, perhaps so, though the better rpgs have a deep back story. But I'm writing rules for mass battles between armies that arise out of cultures, that have distinct elements including forms of magic and religious beliefs.

What's your stance on Tolkien creating Middle Earth and Lewis Narnia? There's not much formal religion in either, but there is surely religious belief, as well as "magic."

If you're afraid it will cause an issue, then just call it something else. Petition, devine request. Something better than that of course.
Leve the game the same but change the word.

Or, leave it as is. It's your game.
It is not impossible for the players to call it something else, or just not use it. Unless they are "rabid GW" type players I guess.

Hmmm.

Thesauus for prayer: answer adoration, appeal, application, begging, benediction, beseeching, communion, devotion, entreaty, grace, imploration, imploring, imprecation, invocation, litany, orison, petition, plea, pleading, request, request for help, rogation, service, suit, supplication, worship

Hmmm. Supplication might do. Or plea, which is shorter.

Thanks, I'll think about that.

And you know, we evangelicals often criticize ourselves for a tendency to pray AT our enemies instead of praying FOR them as we are commanded. A synonym like "plea" might finesse some (understandable) misunderstandings.

Hmmmm, while I did enjoy your section on Prayer in 1st edition, I don't think you need to add much more. The kind of people who would get really offended, IMHO, won't be placated by what you've written. I would personally take the Tolkien route: publish your fantasy game as a fantasy game, with rules for prayer as it exists in your secondary world, and let it stand on its own merits. Save your lengthy explanations for those that ask for them or express concern over prayer being classed as a form of magic (though in reality, magic is a form of prayer).

Regarding your expansion of the ethical monotheist religion: please, please, oh please avoid creating a Church of the Crystal Dragon Jesus
link
Christianity, like all religions, arose out of very unique circumstances, so unless your secondary world contains fantasy Judaism and fantasy Greek Rationalism, your ethical monotheist religion shouldn't resemble Christianity that much.

No Crystal Dragon Jesus. It's not our world, and none of the Godfearers are Christians, as Christianity doesn't exist there. Logres, the fantasy Romano-British culture, might come closest, but still not. Logres does have bishops and all sorts of high church rituals, but nothing specifically Christian. I've written up two other Godfearer cultures: the Brotherhood of the Four Beasts (based on the symbolism of the four gospel beasts) and the deists of Wellspring, sort of enlightenment/unitarian types, worshipping a logically necessary First Cause.

There may be a Prophet, too.

So I am sort of borrowing earth prototypes. Hey, I'm a historian.

"However, I must say, I would not play, or allow anyone in a game I was running, to play a follower of Vivamort or Thed or any of the evil gods."

The concept of somebody praying to an "evil god" makes no sense unless one of two things applies:

1. You believe yourself to be "evil," which probably constitutes 0.000000001% of humanity… outside blockbuster movies, that is, where the bad guys are conveniently aware of their evilness, and revel in it: "Follow me, boys, let's go do Eeeeeeevil!" (Has anybody seen my vaguely Nazi-like armored suit…?)

-OR-

2. You believe that your god is good, and that other guy's god is "evil," which applies to @ 99.9999999% of humanity.

Many (most?) of history's most heinous people firmly believed themselves and their actions to be on the right side of their deity's wishes, so whether or not they prayed for outcomes, they certainly didn't think of their actions as evil.

"Ethical monotheists worship the God Who is sovereign and good. He can obliterate entire armies, as when Moses parted the sea"

No doubt, from the point of view of all those Egyptian widows and orphans, the Hebrews were praying to an evil god. (Who, prior to obliterating their army, had already shown an alleged predilection for the mass murder of all their innocent first-born sons… not to mention commanding Moses and Aaron to slaughter their own kin for the crime of worshipping idols.)

What does a deity have to do around here, to get called "Evil?"

But aren't rpgs in which one plays a vampire or werewolf examples of folks "praying to an evil god" or at least playing at being a follower of one? I've never read or played any of those games, but unless they've redefined what a vamp or a were IS, away from our traditional understanding, then aren't they choosing the bad guys?

You are certainly correct that people may be confused about right and wrong. But if you are suggesting Right and Wrong are all in the eye of the beholder, I must disagree.

As to the events of Exodus, you omit the most troubling part, that God hardened Pharaoh's heart so he would keep denying the Hebrews their freedom. Of course we are still arguing about free will and God's sovereignty today. But I'm not sure that I'd call the Egyptians innocent, and in any case I think the Creator (who didn't HAVE to make a world, He didn''t NEED it or us) is free to do as He pleases with His own creation. And of course Exodus leads to Calvary, so God takes his own medicine.

This last bit is rather off the topic of game design, though.

Will all of the religions in the game be monotheistic? Or will some religions have pantheons or families of gods?

In a world where gods are very real and manifest themselves in everyday life, it would be difficult to be a nonbeliever (although belief in one or more gods wouldn't necessary equate to worship of one or more gods.)

Would a non-worshipper's prayers carry more or less weight than a worshipper's? Maybe some gods prefer to answer the prayers of "first-timers," while others prefer to answer the prayers of the most devout (or those who act the most devout).

Can you pray to more than one god at the same time, either for different things or for the same thing, in the hope that at least one of them will answer your prayer? Or does doing so anger some or all of the gods?

Do different gods hold sway over different, though sometimes overlapping, areas of life, as in the Greek and Roman pantheons? Or is each god in charge of everything, for his, her, or its followers?

How does omnipotence figure in? (Obviously every worshipper *believes* his or her god is omnipotent, but I mean *actual* omnipotence – the ability to do anything, up to and including creating or destroying the universe.) Is one god "the" omnipotent god-of-all-gods? Or is each god omnipotent, and just chooses to do some things and not others (the "he works in mysterious ways" effect).

Given two or more omnipotent gods, especially gods with opposite aims, how does omnibenevolence factor in? Is one god all-good, and all of the others less so? Is it even possible for opposing gods to each be omnibenevolent? (Again, I'm not talking about what their worshippers *believe*, but what the gods actually *are*.)

Then there's omniscience . . .

I think that as soon as you begin to delve into the actual mechanics of prayer and religion in an RPG, these are the kinds of questions you need to address.

Granted, some of these are questions that humanity has been wrestling with for millennia without any concrete answers, but you have a real advantage here. You are categorically stating that in *your* world, this god or these gods *are* most definitely real, no ifs, ands, or buts. And this god likes this kind of prayer, and that god likes that kind, and this other one prefers animal sacrifice. This god is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and if he doesn't answer your prayer it's because he has other plans, or you didn't pray hard enough or often enough, or you didn't tithe enough, or you looked the other way when that beggar approached you in the street.

If there's one thing we humans are good at, it's pattern recognition. I think that with a multitude of real gods that are directly involved in everyday life, the behaviors and rules for each god would pretty quickly become set in stone. You pray to Thog in the morning, nothing happens. You pray in the evening, and your prayer is answered. Do that a few more times, and you can tell all your friends: pray to Thog in the evening if you want to see real results.

At any rate, that's a lot to think about (and explain) in a set of RPG rules.

Personally, I think I'd play it looser like Lion in the Stars says: let the GM handle situations as they arise in the game, and explain away any inconsistencies as the capriciousness or "plans you cannot comprehend" of one or more of the gods.

But aren't rpgs in which one plays a vampire or werewolf examples of folks "praying to an evil god" or at least playing at being a follower of one? I've never read or played any of those games, but unless they've redefined what a vamp or a were IS, away from our traditional understanding, then aren't they choosing the bad guys?

This is certainly true in some D&D settings, where any spell with the [Evil] descriptor is inherently evil (regardless of its actual effect) and most of the worshipers of evil gods really do conduct their affairs for the EVULZ! Alignment is simple, it's a spot on your character sheet. Killing evil creatures and looting their bodies is ok, despite the fact that the adventurers may well be invading their homes without provocation.

In other games, it isn't as easy to see what morality is being acted out, players and npcs do many questionable things. Those sort of game worlds are not divided into good guys and bad guys any more than the real world is; this includes Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc…

You are certainly correct that people may be confused about right and wrong. But if you are suggesting Right and Wrong are all in the eye of the beholder, I must disagree.

This is certainly true, but it's also not easy to declare that this any act is good or evil without understanding its context and effects. Intent is all well and good, but the consequences of ones actions (direct and indirect) are what should be evaluated.

A project that I have devoted myself to completing (maybe in grad school, although it is NOT what I really want to do in grad school) is to create a toy universe where Cartesian Dualism actually is verifiable through science (currently it is not, via the physics that we know for a fact exist – this is to say that the recent discovery of FTL Neutrinos does nothing to remedy the falsehood of Cartesian Dualism. There might be some other, as yet form of dualism that exists, but it is absolutely not Cartesian Dualism).

The world I am looking at for a complex toy-universe is Middle Earth, as it presents the most options for a fairly complete cosmology (both Historic and Mythologic). That took me a while to understand the difference between the two, as most people tend to think that The Silmarillion is a historic cosmology, when it isn't, Tolkien even says so in The History of Middle Earth: Morgoth's Ring. Tolkien's published works (aside from parts of The History of Middle Earth) are all Mythologic cosmology. They describe the stories as they relate to a primitive peoples who are unable to fully understand the actual Science behind the cosmology (which apparently the Elves can). And, that Science happens to be based upon a sort of Cartesian Dualism.

Which contains all manner of internal contradictions and problems with sorting out a physics that actually works.

As for "Right and Wrong," these are objective values that are based upon the Well-Being of all conscious life.

The maximizing of this Well-Being should be the normative values of all conscious life, but there are some contingencies (based upon facts about the world) that sometimes make it difficult to act upon these norms.

This does not mean that these Rights do not exist, any more than a robber taking you wallet means that you do not have a right to your property. It just means that this right has been violated (a wrong has been done).

And do not confuse Well-Being with Happiness. Well-Being is NOT Happiness. Sometimes, we must toil or momentarily suffer to maximize our total well being (such as going to the dentist, or doctor for an uncomfortable procedure that will ultimately make us healthier).

That Well-Being is not well defined should be no more of a problem than that Health or Nutrition is not well defined. That different people have different states of health or nutritional needs does not mean that their health or food needs are not determined by facts about the world, nor does it mean that we might define anything as food or good health. There are a great many things that automatically exclude themselves from the domain of Health (having a raging case of Anthrax, for instance), and there are a great many things that exclude themselves from the domain of nutritious food (Plutonium, Polonium, Uranium, Anthrax Spores, Strychnine, Arsenic, etc.).

And that accepting Maximizing Well-Being as our stated axiom of morality should be no more of a problem than stating that our axioms for math are such things as "Addition/Substraction," "Multiplication/Division," and the identities for these processes (1 and 0). We have no better reason for accepting these foundational axioms of math than we do for accepting the foundational axiom of morality (To Maximize the Well-Being of all conscious creatures). Nor do we have any justification for accepting the values and norms of science (accuracy, precision, truth, honesty, integrity, transparency, etc.). Yet we understand that by accepting these axioms, Math and Science are "better" for it. The same is true for Morality and Ethics.

This is further confirmed by the existence of descriptive moralities that are observed among infants and many animals in the wild. A prescriptive morality predicts that we would observe this function among those with a cognitive faculty that was sufficiently developed/evolved (do not think though that this means that evolution is teleological). Since we DO find these descriptive moral systems in the wild, this provides our evidential/inductive foundation (just as the foundation for math and science is inductive and not deductive) that morality is derived from facts about the world, and thus is discoverable via the scientific method.

And, yes, I do know about Hume. Hume was wrong.

However, that this morality exists in our world does not mean that we must assign such a morality to a fantasy world (Keeping in mind Euthyphro's dilemma about the existence of God(s) in a world – That in such worlds, claiming that morality is sourced from God(s) presents a contradiction: Is what is right because God(s) say(s) so, or because God(s) must say what is right because it is right – to paraphrase. I can't translate the original greek well enough to do it justice).

But we needn't always, in gaming, eliminate ALL contradictions. JJ Abrams talks about this in creating his worlds for TV and film.

He says that eliminating all contradictions removes a great deal of mystery from a world.

And a world without mystery is a BO-RING WORLD!

And, even though I am functionally an atheist WRT the Christian God (yet Agnostic WRT a "creator" being), I see absolutely no problem with the introduction of "prayer" as a form of magical system in a world.

Over the last two days, I have discovered a game called Runequest (not by direct involvement), and done a lot of reading about the world of Glorantha (and it turns out that I have read the foundational materials that were partially the inspiration for Runequest/Glorantha: The Works of Joseph Campbell – It helps to have a roommate who was a Student of Campbell, and pressured me into reading his works to further thought about my own plans for world creation in digital/virtuo setting).

And in Glorantha, they have a form of Magic called Spirit Magic that is essentially prayer. It is a plea to a personal spirit to whom one sacrifices a small amount of one's Soul in return for a boon done by the Spirit.

To further this, they have another form of Magic called Divine Magic, that is an actual plea to a God for intercession on the behalf of the player(s).

That IS Prayer!

So if someone wishes to construct a universe where prayer really works (although the evidence for it working in this world is zero – if someone wishes to cite personal experience, I would rejoin with "anecdotal" and "cognitive bias"), then they are doing no different than any other Role Playing Game (including Computer Games – what do you think the spells are in a lot of the Final Fantasy settings?). Think about it: even the oldest Role Playing Game, Dungeons & Dragons has a character class by the name of "Cleric" that is based upon the Judeo-Christian faith.

Why get outraged at someone including "Prayer" when this has been done in RPGs since the 1970s?

In my opinion, if an author has to inject his own view on religion/prayer/magic into a set of rules, even only as an 'author's view', it diminishes the value of the ruleset as a ruleset for wargaming.

Fantasy has its own set of conventions, and most fantasy is far less internal consistent than our own world – I would not expect it to be anything else. So, why bother about the internal consistency of magic spells or prayers? In the end, it still comes down to throwing some dice to kill some more figures, or to boost morale, or whatever.
In our games, we have a running joke. Whenever someone questions the internal logical consistency of fantasy elements in a game, the answer always is "Insert your own favorite explanation".

The Harry Potter universe never really explains where magic comes from. Neither does Tolkien nor many other succesful fantasy franchises. That doesn't mean that readers cannot come up with their own views on the matter. It just doesn't need to be spoon-fed by either JK Rowling or Tolkien.

In the end, as a gamer, I just don't need the need to read about why you designed your magic spells or prayers a certain way (in my view, it's all made up anyway), and certainly not with references to our own real-world religions. If there would be an explanation, it only would have to be consistent within the fantasy world. If you do believe in the power of prayer in our own real world, it doesn't mean prayer in the fantasy world has to workin the same way. It's fantasy! Anything goes!

P.S. I'm an atheist, so don't take my opinion too seriously :-)

Wow, lots to think about and react to overnight.

jpattern, no indeed, my world has lots of religions, and the PRIDE rules accommodate that. The Saex (fantasy Saxons to fight the fantasy Romano-Brits of Logres) still worship Odin and his crowd, whose spells are quite powerful. That's the only pagan pantheon I've done up, but the PRIDE rules make it easy enough to do others. Indeed, one of these years I'll do the Trojan War supplement; I taught THE ILIAD for many years and know it well.

The hyena people and a few others worship Entropy.

The Vasty Vault (source of necromancers, wraith kings, etc.)is extra-dimensional but really Nothingness, anti-creation.

And lots of tribes like the leonines are basically animistic tribal, although in the case of the leonines their spooky Moon Pride are Platonic philosophers.

PRIDE is for fighting mass battles between armies, and eventually when the campaign rules are done, for linking battles into wars. Armies come out of cultures, and cultures have some sort of religion. I'm mostly not worrying about individual choices.

LBW, intentions matter and so do outcomes, and its tricky. A standard conservative critique of liberal social policies in the US is that the libs intentions are good, but the outcomes often bad, and they put way too much emphasis on their good intention.

However, you say "Intent is all well and good, but the consequences of ones actions (direct and indirect) are what should be evaluated." But if a mugger/murderer, unknowingly, offs a man who was going to suicide a few hours later, and as a consequence the murdered man's family gets insurance that would not be paid for a suicide, the act was STILL murder, legally and also morally, because of the intent. And if a surgeon slices me open trying to heal me, and I die instead, he may be incompetent but he is not in any sense a murderer. I think morally we must look FIRST at intent, but then go on and look, as a matter of good policy, at outcomes.

Alex, first, I'm not much of a fan of Joseph Campbell, but I've loved Glorantha and Runequest for 30+ years. And Stafford's use of Campbell certainly accounts for some of his world's depth.

On Tolkien's cosmology, historic and mythologic, I would agree that, e.g., treating the Genesis creation accounts as science is silly. But of course I agree with Tolkien (we are, after all, SPLINTERED LIGHT) that there are True Myths. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That is both factually and mythologically true, because all truth is one and is of God.

I teach Euthyphro, and struggle to make my Christian students understand Socrates' point, that one cannot logically say that something is good merely because God says it (as though God flipped a coin about murder and adultery, and because it came down heads those things are declared to be wrong) because one is assuming the conclusion and arguing in a circle.

However, Judaism as I understand it, and Christianity for sure, don't really see this as a problem because God IS Good, God = Good and Good = God. Euthyphro's is a false dichotomy, though it was a problem for the Greeks with their gods made-in-man's-image.

I teach Job alongside the ILIAD, and stress that Job is BETTER OFF at the end than at the beginning, in several ways, and his benefit could ONLY come through his suffering.

But it STILL comes down to "where were you when I made the world?"

"And a world without mystery is a BO-RING WORLD!" Amen, brother!

Phil, perhaps Potter really never explains where magic comes from, although love and selfishness and sacrifice seem to be far more important than the rather childish (and, I agree, assumed and not explained) magic system. But Tolkien very definitely is operating within a Christian cosmology and all supernatural power comes ultimately from a Creator God; the bad guys are fallen angels abusing the power God gave them. And I actually think the last couple of books show Rawlings to be operating within a Christian world view herself.

To each his own, of course, but for me the internal consistency of Middle Earth and Glorantha are large parts of what makes being there through literature and gaming worthwhile. For me fantasy, and creating a fantasy world, are serious matters.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, 'twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we're made.

Doc,

I agree a created fantasy world that is internally consistent is a better created world than a fantasy world that is not.

However, that doesn't mean the author needs to explain how he came to that consistency. Tolkien was indeed probably inspired by Christian cosmology to create Middle Earth, and the values of compassion, sacrifice and love are present in many stories. However, as a reader or gamer, I do not need to know how an author came to the world he presents in his stories, movies, or a gaming ruleset.

A story, movie, a work of art, or for that matter, a game portraying fantasy battles, does not need an explicit explanation explaining the motivations of the author. The 'user' can and should add his own interpretations.
Compare it to a work of art: if the artist would explain to everyone how and why the piece was designed a certain way, it would become far less interesting. Art becomes interesting because many different people can project their own values/ideals/intepretations on top of the experience.

So, I definitely can appreciate an author's effort to make his world internal consistent. However, leave the reasoning behind the creation process out of the rulebook, and allow everyone to add/interpret/explain the rules the way he sees fit.

However, there are of course shades of gray. If, for instance, a game would include elements that are so different from 'common accepted practices', some explanation can help. But I don't need theology to explain the existance of fireballs, demons, soothsayers or healers in a fantasy game :-)

Well again, as Pogo says, to each his everlovin' blue-eyed own. I think I do understand what you are saying. But I don't agree, e.g., about art. You say "Art becomes interesting because many different people can project their own values/ideals/intepretations on top of the experience." Of course they can, and do, but it MATTERS that, e.g., Michelangelo's David is uncircumcised and hence not THAT David, or that Botticelli used the same model for Venus and for the Virgin Mary. Those artists intended to communicate something and not merely to create a screen upon which we project our own consciousness and unconsciousness.

But simply from the standpoint of using a set of rules, I think you are asking for the equivalent of historians or journalists being neutral and objective. But they CAN'T be, and it is deceptive for them to pretend otherwise. Likewise, my rules come out of MY understanding of reality. If your understanding of reality is different, as you say it is, it seems to me that you are better off KNOWING what viewpoints of mine undergird what I have created (rules as well as world, as they are separable) and so can discount them or alter them as you please. If my vampires are Stoker's or King's, and you prefer Buffy's, you can still use my rules but you may want to adjust some of them to fit your own vision of vampire reality.

One final point (unless others post) about my monotheists and God in my world, versus this one.

If one takes the Bible as authoritative, as I do, one sees that God's visible miracles that clearly counter natural events and forces are mostly clustered in a relatively few periods. There's plenty of examples of God overturning natural law in Exodus, and in the Gospels, and some in Acts as well. But the Hebrews go through long periods, centuries, without much in the way of highly visible and clearly supernatural miracles. Similarly, God doesn't seem to have done such miracles routinely since the early church, though like many many others I have my own experiences of answered prayer for which an explanation of "coincidence" or "wish fulfillment" or whatnot is the LEAST likely. (How many times does a coincidence have to happen before you suspect it is anything BUT coincidence?)

But in my world the pagan gods and the demons are very visible and active, and so I assume that the omnipotent God of ethical monotheism will likewise be more VISIBLY active than He chooses to be in our world most of the time. (Our missionaries often report seeing spectacular miracles in areas where the Enemy is more visibly present.) Different circumstances, different Heavenly strategy.

"If I could, I surely would
stand on the rock where Moses stood
when Pharaoh's army got drownded;
Oh, Mary, don't you weep."

Wow, we have managed to discuss religion in a totally civilized manner. My suggestion to you doc, is to create your 'magic' in the same manner as Lucas did for Star Wars. A really deep background there but not one mention of religion I can remember. The Force exists much like dark matter in our universe and is usable by some. It's neutral in its existence and usable by some, for either good or evil, but not by all.

Star Wars tends to maintain its consistency (within the desire to make a movie) without ever explaining the religious beliefs of the various races.

Without naming names, I recall a religion that published a pamphlet explaining how D&D was an evil creation leading children to evil. There were also articles in the area paper quoting parents whose children had taken up D&D and (to quote)"A dark miasma descended over our home when those books came into our lives".

Now I'm not clear on these rules. Are they for sale or simply for use by your own group? If for sale I would avoid religion and go with The Force. If for your own group, well that's pretty much up to them what they are willing to accept as rules.

I agree with Phil Dutre on this. There's no need to have to explain yourself Doc. After all, these are GAME RULES, not a philosophical discourse on world religions.

Well, after a conversation with David, who mostly agrees with the majority of posters who say put it in a sidebar, I have put three long sections of personal commentary and "why I do it this way" into boxes which can be formatted as sidebars or otherwise be distinct from the body of the rules.

Mikhail, yes, it is unfortunately an occasion for wonder that we have had such a discussion with such good will throughout. My thanks to the TMP community.

As to the rules, 1st edition has been out a while and is indeed for sale. Second edition will replace those early next year, God willing.

I do in fact use the "force" in Lucas' sense; shamanic magic draws on "mana" as a natural force that is morally neutral, like electricity. It is one of five magic systems (including Godfearers' prayers) available in the rules.

I deeply appreciate everyone's help. I'm refining the layout of PRIDE with designer's notes (on a lot of topics including prayer) in separate boxes, which will probably be sidebars.

However, Judaism as I understand it, and Christianity for sure, don't really see this as a problem because God IS Good, God = Good and Good = God. Euthyphro's is a false dichotomy, though it was a problem for the Greeks with their gods made-in-man's-image.

Yup. Fantasy author John C. Wright gave a good analogy:

The Christian answer is always that ‘good' and ‘God' are two words for one thing, and thus the distinction exists in speech only, not in reality. It is like asking whether light is bright because brightness is light or because lightness is bright? If light were darkness, would brightness become dim? The question is meaningless.

Yes indeed. "Can God make a rock so big He cannot lift it?" As CS Lewis commented, silliness does not cease being silliness just because one puts "God can" in front of it.

"Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested."

link

Might need a rule for "prayer misfires" just like spell misfires!

God won't be put in a box or a test tube.

I prefer the experience of Flannery O'Connor at Lourdes. Everyone bathes in the same water, hundreds during the day. She wrote later that no healing was granted, but she remained convinced of its miraculous efficacy, since she didn't catch anything!

I believe in the old Knights & Magick rules that if a cleric rolled too high on his prayer table it meant he had done something to offend his god and would receive no more assistance for the rest of the game.

Upon further thought, I think it is a good idea to include your explanation of prayer. It is always important to try and avoid thinking about prayers and relics in a 'talismanic' way, such as when the Jews tried to use the Ark of the Covenant against the Philistines.

Yes, that mechanism is very close to what I do; a prayer is (almost) always answered, but not necessarily as asked, and at some point no more assistance will be granted for the rest of the game.

And though I'm putting it into a sidebar now, I agree that some explanation of what prayer IS should be given, simply so players who don't pray themselves have fewer misconceptions -- of which seeing it as talismanic would certainly be one.

Anyone trying to do a statistical study of prayer and its effects is, I think, displaying just that sort of misunderstanding.

I just don't see how one leaves it out, but it makes me nervous to try to turn something so real and powerful into a game mechanism.

Does anyone (assuming anyone is still reading the thread!) remember a Christian role-playing game from the late 70's, maybe? DRAGONRAID or such? Players could get some sort of effect in the game by memorizing and reciting Bible verses. I suppose one might find such a game useful for getting kids to do memory work, but it struck me as precisely what you mean by a talismanic approach. Hopefully what I do in PRIDE doesn't fall into that trap.

Just found it: 1984. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonRaid

A persons understanding of reality can be WRONG.

There are such things called Facts that are arrived at via a process called The Scientific Method.

Rarely do facts change for the worse. They do sometimes change, but our understanding of them only IMPROVES.

As for the Bible being "Authoritative:"

If One accepts what the Bible says, then if you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you are doomed to go to hell, by a very simple Syllogism.

Luke 14: 26

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple

1 John 3:15

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

Revelations 21:8

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and mongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

This presents us with a problem for taking the Bible as an authority.

By what means do we determine which parts of it are meant to be taken literally, and which parts are meant to be taken metaphorically.

If one chooses to take every verse literally, then there are literally THOUSANDS of such syllogisms that lead to direct contradictions (which, in formal logic, means that ANYTHING can be derived, including the claim that I AM GOD ➔ look it up. That is one of the most basic rules of formal Logic and Math), or which produce outcomes that are ANYTHING but Moral.

If one chooses to take the entire Bible as Metaphor, which is the best choice, then the whole foundation for claims about original sin and salvation are just another myth (which they are anyway). This is probably why doc doesn't like Joseph Campbell, because his entire corpus of works are about this very fact, and that as a myth the Bible has far more power than it does as a purported historic event (which is a pity).

BUT…

If there are no such means, then one can take ANY interpretation one wishes from it. And we are then back to the problem of ANY claim being true, which means that it explains nothing (If obviously false claims can be proved true, then a system has no value to determine truths about the real world).

One can then pick and choose (as people regularly do) parts of it to support their particular worldview. Again, not very useful when one is trying to determine what is true about the world and what is not.

The Bible also presents us with another challenge to its authority:

History.

There is NO RECORD AT ALL of Moses or the Jewish Captivity in Egypt (and, no, the Hapiru were NOT the Jews). The Sinai Peninsula contains NO EVIDENCE of a mass of people wandering it for 40 years, nor does it contain any evidence of a mass of people wandering it for ANY period of time.

The Historical Record of the Sinai presents a clear record of a continuous occupation (or absence) of people, and that the Jews NEVER appeared in Egypt until after the Babylonia Captivity, and the Hellenistic Age (when a large group of them settled in Alexandria.

If one cannot do a scientific study of prayer, then one cannot claim it to be efficacious. This would be no different than claiming that horoscopes really work because science cannot "Prove" anything about them.

This is a MISUNDERSTANDING OF WHAT SCIENCE IS.

To begin with, Science doesn't "PROVE" anything, in the way that most credulous people believe. Science provides evidential support and creates an ability to predict based upon past evidence. It quantifies the error with which we can make these predictions based upon probability.

Sometimes, this error becomes so low and the probability so high that we take it to mean that some principle is a Law or that it is Proved or that the certainty is 100%.

Examples of these things:

• The sun rising tomorrow.
• Water being "wet" between 0ºC and 100ºC.
• Objects fall when we drop them.
• Things don't suddenly displace themselves without an outside force (Temporal and Spacial permanence).
• Energy is neither created nor destroyed.

This is EXACTLY what one would need to use if one claims that Prayer is effective.

If Prayer was effective, then there would be statistically relevant patterns that could be observed and then predictions made about those observations.

This is the KEY PRINCIPLE ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.

If it can be observed then it is part of science. If it cannot be observed then it is irrelevant and/or non-existent (or essentially non-existent).

The claim is made by people that they have observed prayer in action.

This claim is trivial to put to the test (as it has been many times), and it has been shown to be statistically non-existent in all cases where the Prayer was not known about, and in cases where the Prayer IS known about, simple psychological factors account for any effects (since most of the cases show that the effect is the exact opposite of what is prayed for). It isn't hard to Google these tests and their results (beware of tests done by people seeking to "Prove" things. Science doesn't work that way – and any people seeking to "Prove" something are usually biasing their tests).

As for Bias, since that was brought up… There is another misunderstanding about Science. The Scientific Method ASSUMES that people will be biased, and it has been constructed in such a way that this bias can be quantified and eliminated to a set degree of error (knowing the error is what Science is all about). Things like Procedures, Peer-Review, Double-Blind Testing, Triple-Blind Testing, Anonymous Reviewing (and sometimes publishing), and so on, all remove as much bias as is possible (and often approaching all bias).

So that a historian, anthropologist, or scientist has a bias is irrelevant, because their ideological opponents will be the first one's to review their work, and the scientist who doesn't follow these procedures soon finds that they are no longer given work to do, because un-confronted bias produces poor models of the world.

To illustrate:

If Bernoulli had a bias of some kind, that was not eliminated by the Scientific Process, that produced an inaccurate model of gas pressures, it is unlikely that mankind would have ever been able to produce the airplane or submarine. All of our attempts would forever end in failure until that bias was corrected.

This is what Science DOES. It eliminates ERROR, and Quantifies it (such that we may know what we need to eliminate.

Science never leads us down the road of WORSE information and LESS ACCURATE Models. It only improves and refines those models.

Thus, the Post-Modern/Religious claim that "Science is always wrong and changing itself" is just a gross misunderstanding of what is happening.

And that is what this was all about:

Beliefs can be wrong, because of the existence of facts (and a ROBUST method of discovering those facts).

As for Euthyphro…

If God=Good, then you have a BIG problem:

1 Samuel 15:2-3

Now go an smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling.

This is not the only place in the Bible where God commits genocide.

Then there is the problem of Slavery. The Bible is completely in favor of slavery.

This rather contradicts most USEFUL definitions of Good

Also, claiming that God=Good is still not addressing Euthyphro's Dilemma.

All it is doing is creating an equivocation.

Let us re-state the Dilemma, using your identity (Because, using the Mathematical Property of Identity, when you state that two things are equal, then either may be used anywhere that one appears):

Is Good Good because Good says so or is Good Good because it is Good.

Or, even stranger:

Is God God because God says so, or is God God because it is God?

This hasn't done a thing to clear up the contradiction.

If Good is Good because something called "Good" says that whatever it says is Good, then anything may be Good (all you are doing here is saying that something is Good because there is an objective Good – see the second part of the dilemma. OR, you are stuck with the Problem of Good being able to just redefine evil away by just claiming it is good).

And…

If Good is Good because it is Good, then it is irrelevant that we call it "God" since Good would be Good even without "God."

The Second part of the Identity replacement creates no clearer a picture.

Here we have God claiming to be God, and in the second part, we have him just HAPPENING to be God.

The problem that you have with this kind of equivocation is that you have no JUSTIFICATION for claiming God=Good.

You may cite the Bible, but there is nothing external to the Bible for its authority, and we have seen by the examples cited above that it contains MUCH that is highly questionable as coming from universal source of morality and "good." Not to mention the contradictions which lead us to a completely useless authoritative source.

The claim may be made: But there is no good reason to accept the claims of Science, as many religious Authorities do.

They would be correct in stating that we have no good reason to support the basic axioms of Science.

Yet they would be absolutely wrong in suggesting this undermines science.

Science happens to have done something that religion HASN'T. It produces testable and predictable claims about the world that allow us to create both models of the world and to effectively (predictably) alter the world.

At some point, so I might as well throw this out, the claim of "science being evil" is likely to be made (people usually like to cite the "evils of Atheism re: Hitler Stalin and Pol Pot or Mao"). Well, Hitler was a Catholic who regularly cited the Bible, and used Jesus as a Justification for the Holocaust and his marginalization of Jews. On EVERY Nazi Belt Buckle were the words "Got Mit Uns" (God is with us). Stalin created a system that was a proxy for a theistic religion. He created an ideology that just happened to include atheism as a tenet. Yet NOTHING he did was BECAUSE he was an atheist. He never said "You are being sent to the Gulag because there is no God," or "No God has commanded me to condemn you to death." The same can be said of Pol Pot, who just happened to be an insane person who was an atheist (yet he didn't act because he was an atheist)…

Modern Atheism is about Reason and Rationality. No one ever committed an atrocity or because violent because they were being TOO REASONABLE.

Just to get that out of the way, because it usually comes up.

BUT…

In a game, the existence of these sorts of contradictions is a source of mystery and wonder to be explored, and because the creator of the world has absolute power, it doesn't matter whether things get explained or not. Contradictions can drive a story, which is what gaming is about creating…

It is about creating a story.

Also, Tolkien DID explain his Magic, and he had a quite detailed cosmology, yes, based upon his rather strange form of Catholicism.

Yet in reading The History of Middle Earth it becomes quite clear that the constant recognition of contradictions that comes from the assumptions he was making about Eru were driving him to wits end. His insistence upon a strict Catholic Cosmology was constantly presenting him with irreconcilable contradictions in the operation of his mythology and cosmology (something that I am encountering in trying to find a way to model it in virtuou – the easiest way to resolve the contradictions is to just do away with Omnipotence, since it is internally inconsistent anyway: Creating a Rock so heavy that the omnipotent person cannot lift it). And just because one claims that the point is silly does nothing to alter the logical consistency of the claim.

A Contradiction is ALWAYS silly. That doesn't make it go away though.

And, sometimes things that are COMPLETELY TRUE are "Silly" as well.

Take the following claim.

If a Triangle has four sides then I am God.

This is a COMPLETELY TRUE CLAIM. It is also a completely silly claim, but it is true none-the-less

This was C.S. Lewis' problem when he tried to brush aside a legitimate contradiction. He had no ability to recognize Logic and its consequences for the real world.

Anyway, back to Tolkien's magic.

Tolkien's Magic BTW, was driven by the ability to manipulate the Fëa of the world, which pervaded Arda, much like The Force pervades George Lucas' universe. This came in the form of Lore (which was basically the Scientific Method, which Tolkien presented as VERY DANGEROUS), and Craft, which was akin to engineering. Both were based upon the ability to manipulate the Fëa of the world (usually a specific object) to bring it either into harmony, or out of harmony with its surroundings), and to alter the Hröa of things in the world via the manipulation of that thing's Fëa.

The Ability to manipulate both Fëa and Hröa in Arda is a function of the ability to sense it.

The Valar, Maiar, and Elves all have a very acute sense of the existence of Fëar in the world and they are able to use both their Fëa and Hröa to touch other Fëa (Hröa are always able to touch Hröa), and to use it to manipulate said Fëa (or Hröa that is touched by Fëa).

Thus, Elves in Middle Earth (and other parts of Arda) are able to see parts of a person's Soul (which is what the Fëa is).

They may speed the healing of their own bodies, or that of another's by the application of an appropriate Fëa upon the wounded Hröa and Fëa of another.

They may alter the properties of a physical object by endowing it with its own Fëa; thus, getting magical swords, rings, jewels, light – which is another physical property in Arda, rather than being an electromagnetic "substance" as it is in our world, or even the land itself (Lothlorien, Doriath, Imladris; or, on the opposite side of the coin, Mordor, Anfauglith, parts of Dorthonion/Taur-Nu-Fuin).

the Fëa could be temporarily spent like money, or ejected from the body as a physical substance in the world (Morgoth liked doing this and used his to permeate all of Arda with a part of himself, thus creating a pervasive evil as a part of all existence and all living things that were born in Arda. Thus only the Valar and Maia were completely free from the taint of Morgoth). We have examples of individuals in Middle Earth Putting forth their power. This is the unleashing of their Fëa, and allowing it to stand-forth to confront the world, and forces or others in that world (As Luthien does at Tol Sirion to unseat Sauron, and forcibly topple his tower there). Notice that this can be a very powerful act for people who have a large and powerful Fëa (imagine what Fëanor Curufinwë could have done had he not been driven mad with pride, jealousy, and covetousness for the Silmarils!).

So, Tolkien very well explains his world and the magic within it.

He just does not do so in the stories themselves, which is appropriate, as he was trying to convey a sense of depth and mystery to a world where people would always be able to ask questions*.

Mystery is always important for motivating people to act. When people do not find themselves curious about a thing, they fail to act.

Without curiosity, there would be no "Progress" at all.

*This is probably why so many religious people fear, distrust and misunderstand science, as they believe that it deprives the world of questions.

On the Contrary, science ALWAYS provides itself with ever more questions for every one that it asks.

Theistic Religion is typically what deprives us of questions and mystery. It claims that all questions have the same answer: God did it.

That doesn't leave one with much room to question.

And if one then asks "How did God do it?" Then one is left with one of two alternatives:

• The answers are discoverable.

• The answers are not discoverable

In the first case, we are then right back to the case where we must rely upon science, as it is the only method whereby we may find answers to the questions about how our universe works.

In the second case, we are then left with a case where we again, run out of questions, which was the original problem posed by the claim that "God did it."

I probably should have broken that up into separate parts…

For some ideas, I'd recommend taking a look at Exalted's magic system, especially the version used by the Sidereal Exalted. Sorry, that's in one of the big hardcover books, but you should be able to find a first edition copy for cheap.

As a side question, how 'Old Testament' is your Godfearer religion? Do you have to give an offering of some kind to request favor with o-kamisama? Is there a preferred type of offering for certain effects (see also material components for spells)?

Anyone trying to do a statistical study of prayer and its effects is, I think, displaying just that sort of misunderstanding.

The problem is that you're creating a game mechanic for divine intervention, so there needs to be some level of statistical relationship between requests and results.

playing an wicked role freeform is altogether too close to wishing to be what one is pretending.

Some of us play a wicked role to prevent ourselves from acting on those impulses in the real world.

But let's get back to writing rules for 'supernatural intervention' of all types. For short-hand, it's all "magic" with an adjective in front of the word magic.

Doc, you've said that the shamanic magic is short-duration compared to the holy magic. This implies that either shamanic magic is weaker than holy magic, or that holy magic takes longer to deliver its effects.

Personally, I prefer the idea of each 'field' of magic has it's own area of expertise. For example, elemental magic may be very good at destruction, while holy magic may be better suited to protection.

Lion in the Stars wrote:

But let's get back to writing rules for 'supernatural intervention' of all types. For short-hand, it's all "magic" with an adjective in front of the word magic.

There seem to be any number of ways of systematising "flavoured" magic, but popular ones seem to be by colour (red to octarine) and by element.

I would like to see a Discordian magic system based on the elements of Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle and Orange. But it might be hard to find the requisite five-sided dice.

All the best,

John.

Shamanic magic draws on a natural force, mana, which is like electricity; needs ana ctive "circuit, cannot be easily stored, etc. Therefore short in duration.

Alex wrote: If it can be observed then it is part of science. If it cannot be observed then it is irrelevant and/or non-existent (or essentially non-existent).

Irrelevant to SCIENCE. Yes, science is descriptive; it answers HOW, in increasing detail. It does not and cannot answer "why?"

Science describes nature. Period. If there is something beyond nature, something supernatural, science cannot sense it nor measure it and so has nothing to say about it. Any assertion that nature is ALL THERE IS is not a scientific conclusion but a philosophical assumption about reality.

‘I am Ramandu. But I see that you stare at one another and have not heard this name. And no wonder, for the days when I was a star had ceased long before any of you knew this world, and all the constellations have changed.'

‘Golly,' said Edmund under his breath. ‘He's a retired star.'

…'In our world,' said Eustace, ‘a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.'

‘Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of…'

CS Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn treader, 1955.