We've lost that quality now

Apr 21, 2018 21:41

Something Cobb said in his Facebook Live thing this afternoon got me thinking about a subject I hadn't thought about for a long time, but which used to irritate the shit out of me when I was playing D&D and related fantasy RPGs. There was a definite aversion on the part of most DMs to having a monotheistic religion in charge despite the fact that ( Read more... )

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ravenclaw_eric April 22 2018, 07:37:40 UTC
You do have a definite point about that. While (in a fantasy RPG world) a female thief might be especially devoted to the god(dess) of thieves, she would make offerings to the god(dess) of health if she came down sick, and if she married, she would pray to the god(dess) of married women for a good marriage. If she were conscripted into the army and sent to war, she would pray to the god(dess)(es) of war, to bring her home safe and bring her side victory. And so on and so forth.

Part of this is because most moderns know little of how those old religions worked, and what they know of them mostly comes from children's-level books of mythology.

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wombat_socho April 25 2018, 19:47:50 UTC
Indeed. Not too may kids read the classic works from Greek and Roman days, much less in the original. Probably the closest a lot of kids these days get to learning anything about polytheistic religions is anime, unless there's Hindu kids in the neighborhood that they're friends with.

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meep April 25 2018, 17:13:17 UTC
...it's a game. With magic.

So, maybe let's not get too picky about the "realism"

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wombat_socho April 25 2018, 19:45:35 UTC
That speaks to a major difference in RPG players - people like me who came out of wargaming and want the world we're playing in to make a certain amount of sense, and other gamers who are more interested in the story of the adventure. Obviously I'm in the former camp.

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