Holy?

[Tony]

I don't like the approach of picking an imaginary god while creating your character and having it give you stat bonuses. This sounds too much like the simplistic approach used in D&D. I want something more complex.

There could be an entire back story to how the thaumaturges were responsible for destroying the world and causing it to be in its current state from their desire for greed and power. Something along the lines of this would be much more entertaining to discover in the game than some random deity that no one cares about.

If you make the things people worship in the game actually exist in the game world and have a backstory associated with them it is a more engaging approach than creating imaginary gods that give stat bonuses. Having an imaginary god just randomly influence events in the game I would find to be quite irritating. Having an actual character influence events makes more sense. It would make you curious why people were worshipping the creature in the first place and you'd want to investigate.

 

[frakken]

I do not think anyone of us, in this thread, prefer that rpg when we talk about divinity and lore with depth
Also I do think we prefer a more subtile aproach to deitys and Magic than the game we refer to.

 

[Prasse]

Once again i do not condone adding a visible stat for choosing HASTNATIR as god. Everything along the line of gods should be subtle and made behind the curtains. If you by choosing said god is granted a boon of say, +10% gold in 40% of the treasure boxes you open. Then that "stat" should not be visible to the player. If you were to choose another god then maybe there is a 1% chance that enemies willl be attacked by stray animals when below 40% hp.

These are just examples and would need to be finetuned and refined. Just to show what i mean, your not supposed to be able to pinpoint if or when god helps you.

Also if one were to pick a god then there should be a ample backstory for this.

 

[Tony]

Once again i do not condone adding a visible stat for choosing HASTNATIR as god. Everything along the line of gods should be subtle and made behind the curtains. If you by choosing said god is granted a boon of say, +10% gold in 40% of the treasure boxes you open. Then that "stat" should not be visible to the player. If you were to choose another god then maybe there is a 1% chance that enemies willl be attacked by stray animals when below 40% hp.

These are just examples and would need to be finetuned and refined. Just to show what i mean, your not supposed to be able to pinpoint if or when god helps you.

Also if one were to pick a god then there should be a ample backstory for this.

I suppose your opinion on the matter just differs from mine. I do not like picking things like a complex backstory for my character, especially when such things will affect my stats. I like to develop my character as I go. Since I have not played Sui Generis I do not know all the things I want my character to have or to be at the start during character creation. And besides this, choosing a detailed backstory sort of goes against the whole idea of starting out as a random person like they've said will be the case.

As far as a god randomly helping or hindering you; what is the point? How does this make gameplay more enjoyable instead of just irritating? Once people discover what benefits you get from choosing to follow a certain deity they will almost always pick whichever one they think will give them the best stats, not because they want to follow an imaginary deity. I don't like mechanics which encourage min/maxing characters while not adding anything to the overall gameplay value.

 

[Algea]

Once again i do not condone adding a visible stat for choosing HASTNATIR as god.

This is not about stats being visible. This is about stats in general. Why should there be any bonuses or penalties granted if you choose to worship different deities? This is exactly what high fantasy approach means.

Also, christian God doesn't grant its worshippers any stats, visible or not.

 

[Prasse]

Also, christian God doesn't grant its worshippers any stats, visible or not.

How do you know that? *Spooky music plays*

Tony i see your "walkthrough issue", and that is from my pov the reason i would be against such boons from gods. I really hate when ppl post "the ultimate build" for games, specially the older Final Fantasy games, if read that a certain class sucks in comparison to others it's always harder to force myself to play them. I usually do but still, i don't like other ppl telling me what i should or should not do in games. Luckily i have never read a Follout 2 guide, that would prolly ruin it for me.

 

[Tony]

How do you know that? *Spooky music plays*

Tony i see your "walkthrough issue", and that is from my pov the reason i would be against such boons from gods. I really hate when ppl post "the ultimate build" for games, specially the older Final Fantasy games, if read that a certain class sucks in comparison to others it's always harder to force myself to play them. I usually do but still, i don't like other ppl telling me what i should or should not do in games. Luckily i have never read a Follout 2 guide, that would prolly ruin it for me.

Ah, finally something we agree upon! I also do not like reading guides which spoil games.

 

[Prasse]

Haha yes, always good to find common ground .

But that is always a problem, and a game such as SG would probably be very damaged by guides and walkthrougs that breaks the game down into numbers and math. Since they are considering a world where "finding the lore" and exploration is pivotal to the core of it a walkthrough could break it.

Even so, it is up to the player to stay away from walkthroughs ofc, just saying that SG cold suffer worse from it then a lot of other RPGs.

 

[the0thMonkey]

Glad I read right to the end of the post instead of stopping in the middle of the religious flame war.

If gods were to be in SG (presumably under one dominant religion), I would prefer it to be composed of a number of possibly flawed gods each governing an aspect of life, and positively influencing their followers lives. Similar to Roman and Norse gods in real life.

I think the system by which the player earns bonuses from deities should be subtle (not immediately evident), but not necessarily complicated. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a good thing. Subtlety is greatly preferable.

@Algea
I think if gods were to exist they should provide some sort of tangible benefit. If they didn't, why would they exist (or at least be a noticeable part of the game)?

Also, it's nice to see you posting in the public forums again. It seems like it has been a while.

Could someone please explain why gods would be considered high fantasy when thaumaturgy is not?

 

[Algea]

@Algea
I think if gods were to exist they should provide some sort of tangible benefit. If they didn't, why would they exist (or at least be a noticeable part of the game)?

Also, it's nice to see you posting in the public forums again. It seems like it has been a while.

Thank you. Yeah, it's been a while. Got caught up in real life issues.

As for your question - why should they? What kind of tangible benefit Christian God provides? Yet people still believe in it, and in Heaven and Hell. Maybe those gods just exist because they can. Do their god business somewhere.

I actually don't want any religion in SG, but that's just my opinion.

 

[the0thMonkey]

I think an argument could be made that the Christian God does not exist because He does not produce any identifiable effects. I guess SG could include gods in the lore and you'd see people praying (and maybe you would pray) and no benefit would come of it, but in my mind, if gods are going to have any kind of presence in the SG world, they might as well be useful for something.

 

[Algea]

I really think it'd be quite fun if there was some kind of religion without any palpable benefits. Because praying and healing and stat bonuses and god-specific dialogue options are relatively widely used in games. Besides it's what the whole concept of faith is about. To believe in something even if there is no evidence of this something's existence. Maybe a bit boring but very realistic.

Just my thoughts. I'm not trying to argue here.

 

[Prasse]

Glad I read right to the end of the post instead of stopping in the middle of the religious flame war.

If gods were to be in SG (presumably under one dominant religion), I would prefer it to be composed of a number of possibly flawed gods each governing an aspect of life, and positively influencing their followers lives. Similar to Roman and Norse gods in real life.

I think the system by which the player earns bonuses from deities should be subtle (not immediately evident), but not necessarily complicated. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a good thing. Subtlety is greatly preferable.

@Algea
I think if gods were to exist they should provide some sort of tangible benefit. If they didn't, why would they exist (or at least be a noticeable part of the game)?

Also, it's nice to see you posting in the public forums again. It seems like it has been a while.

Could someone please explain why gods would be considered high fantasy when thaumaturgy is not?

Kind of what i have been saying the entire time, that's what you get for skipping the flame war .

 

[the0thMonkey]

Kind of what i have been saying the entire time, that's what you get for skipping the flame war .

I read the flame war and, on the whole, I agree with you. That's why how I envision gods in SG is similar to what you said.

Also, if anybody believes that gods would be too high fantasy, could they explain why?

 

[Tony]

If gods were to be in SG (presumably under one dominant religion), I would prefer it to be composed of a number of possibly flawed gods each governing an aspect of life, and positively influencing their followers lives. Similar to Roman and Norse gods in real life.

I think the system by which the player earns bonuses from deities should be subtle (not immediately evident), but not necessarily complicated. Complexity for the sake of complexity is not a good thing. Subtlety is greatly preferable.

I think if gods were to exist they should provide some sort of tangible benefit. If they didn't, why would they exist (or at least be a noticeable part of the game)?

So you're saying you basically want a bunch of passive gods who never make an actual appearance in the game, and the only impact on the game itself is to bestow subtle bonuses? To me this sounds like a big waste of the developer's time. As I said before, I don't mind if random NPCs in the game worship whatever deity they may choose to worship. But there should not be any bonuses for simply picking an imaginary deity at the start of the game. This approach is rather simplistic and doesn't add anything to the game.

The approach I suggested was to have deities that actually exist in the game, ones you could interact with and actually learn why such creatures were being worshipped. Ones that would actually have a meaningful impact on how the game played out. This approach would actually add something to the game. You could spend hours and days trying to discover who this godlike creature was and why people were worshipping it and what its overall goal was. Is it actually a god or is it just someone or something who has fooled people into thinking so? These kind of questions are ones you could actually explore and discover for yourself in the game.

Could someone please explain why gods would be considered high fantasy when thaumaturgy is not?

It depends on how the gods were implemented. As I previously stated, if gods were implemented in a way similar to Greek mythology this would definitely be high fantasy. If thaumaturgy is implemented in such a way that makes logical sense for the world of Sui Generis (if the "how" and "why" of it can be explained in a logical manner) then it is not high fantasy material.

 

[Tony]

Kind of what i have been saying the entire time, that's what you get for skipping the flame war .

There was a flame war? Damn, I always miss the good stuff!

 

[Prasse]

Begun the flame war has
~Master Yoda

I think he´s referring to you and me ^^. So i quoted the thing that was referring to me, kinda.

The0thMonkey (seriously you forum people and your names ): Nice to see someone who agrees with me, thought you meant that you skipped through to the end of the flame war.

I actually hope that you can delve deeper into the whole god aspect of the game if they choose to have them. That would prolly mean that they would have to go with a very small number of gods, if not only one. Still though i think they will make the best of it.

Edit: Why does'nt Yoda have a last name...?

 

[BrecMadak]

Religion on itself should not be implemented one-sided, unless there is an anti-religion department takes apart Just because it would bore some people to death; existing without anti-believers, anti-iconoclasms, blasphemy and so forth; very unrealistic, yet dumbish it'd be !

 

[the0thMonkey]

I definitely think depth and quality is something we would all like to see in this game, and something we have so far. If deities are going to be in SG, I'm sure we can all agree that whatever form they take they should have depth. The D&D idea of gods that are actually just static abilities (or powers/spells) chosen at the beginning of the game is outdated and has no place in SG.

@Tony
When I said that the gods should be "subtle", I meant that they should not be black-and-white characters that have no depth. This subtlety should also extend to their interaction with the player. They wouldn't be passive, they would just be nuanced.

Also, you might be able to interact with them (Zeus certainly came down among the common people and stirred things up every once in a while).

About the high-low fantasy issue. There should totally be powerful thaumaturges and mysterious creatures that some people revere, but I don't think they would be gods. People have preconceived notions of what gods are (as you listed) and these don't fit in. I think you proposed them as a "realistic"/low-fantasy alternative to what I suggested, but I think there can (and should) be both. With this, the intriguing plots you proposed should still be possible.

Thanks for the explanation. I still don't really believe that gods are higher fantasy than powerful thaumaturges would be, but I don't I can be convinced of such a thing.

 

[Tony]

Thanks for the further clarification, Monkey! I agree with you that there should be depth, whatever they decide to do. Bare Mettle should not copy something previously done in other games. I believe that whatever they choose to do it will be appropriate.