Religion

Bill Viggers (Bill.Viggers@comp.vuw.ac.nz)
Thu, 27 Aug 1992 14:48:07 +1200

morrow@gandalf.rutgers.edu: writes on religion

>As for the question of what to do with players of high levels? The
>simplest is to give them higher level threats. Have armies of orcs

This doesn't work too well unless you have some way of making
sure the threat doesnt apply to newer players as well.

Sure bigger threats should be used agaist bigger factions,
but how to control it? To take an example, Monster island,
the further you go into the island, the tougher the monsters
you meet. This solution is unfortunatly pretty untennable
in Olympia, with players being scatterd about anyway.

Perhaps having some continent that can only be reached by ship
(and thus only reachable by experienced players) would be
one way of doing this?

but instead of having them prey on the weakest around, give them a
territorial goal. Perhaps the orcs want Drassa and will kill to get
it! This would require more sophisticated code but it is not

What after they have it? Won't this affect the newer players
too?

unworkable. The plague idea is both realistic and effective at
cutting down concentrations of people and wealth. Both of these could

Tell me about it :-( Guess who is going to have *lots* of
spare healers left if and when the plague ever gets
erradicated?

be automatically generated by the code if a locations population or
wealth exceeds a certain threshold, perhaps not definitely but, say,
once a city has more than 1000 player controlled men in it, there is a
5% chance per month of plague breaking out or if a city's occupants

Its an idea, but if you do this, we need some way of stopping
people moving from region to region. Those gate houses
working yet?

The current plauge while it gives us a 'common' enemy is a
rather nasty piece of work, that it it popped up every
month or so would quickly make the game almost unplayable.
Maybe a less contagious one?

have more than 10,000 gold, a wandering band of raiders might have a
10% chance of showing up. Rich could keep these thresholds to
himself, leaving everyone to wonder and they could vary from city to
city. Of course, if Rich ever gets around to implementing ownership
of property and locations and then tightens up the economy a little,
conflicts should generate themselves... :-)

Hey I like the bandits idea. Give all those spare soliders
something to do.

----------

But back to religion for a moment. I do like the idea of both
1: Gods in the game
and 2: Players being able to be gods.

Perhaps one of the quest type things being bandered about could
be assension to god-hood?

As for what to do when your a god...

Well, I assume your faction would all be removed for starters probably
to 'valhala' rather than just becomming unaligned. Otherwise
when ever a new god ascends, there will be an *awful* large
number of highly skilled units floating about.

I for one like the idea of sphere of influence, but there should be
general powers as well.

Ideas for general powers:
* Look in on a region holding appropiate temple
(like in the current report format)
* Look into regions with followers.
* Sanctify temple
(needs a priests cooperation)
* Have 'echos' into regions
* " " to factions
* Accept new member of the church
* Banish a follower from the fold of the church
* Declare default 'church' attitudes
* Produce guardian creatures
* Create Artifact???

The looks may be based at various levels of observation
In the temple regions, it may be as observation 10 (a
centre of godly power), where as regions with followers
may be based on the followers observation (infomation
through prayers)

In addition each deity has its own specific powers:

eg sea
Change weather in a sea location
Improve/reduce seaworthiness of a ship
create a ship (maybe)
'Know' locations of all ships
TEMPLE: Special dedicated ships
Skill: shipbuilding /seamanship
Guardians: Sea serpants, mermen

eg magic
Cast any spell on a follower (level 10)
Cast any spell on an entity 'seeable' (level 5)
TEMPLE: In cities
Skill General magic/spells
Guardians: Mystical creatures/Demons

eg healing
Remove plauge from a follower
Heal a follower (fully)
Heal a 'seeable' unit
TEMPLE: in cities
Skills Heal spell (or healing if it becomes a skill)
Guardians: none (but get struck down by the plague etc)

eg weather
Change weather anywhere there are followers or a temple.
TEAPLE: mountain tops etc
Skills : Weather Spells
Guardians: Eagles, snowbirds, mist-giants etc

eg knowlege
Automatic Observation 10 on all 'looks'
Ability to look into a location regardless of presence of
followers.
Reveal lore
Make new lore (helpful for Rich this one)
TEMPLE: Cities
Skills: Lore
Guardians: Genies etc

Followers of a god when in the appropiate temple learn skills
faster (like the guild towers). Temples can be build anywhere
but only concecrated in they are in the appropiate region.

Gods powers take time and mana to use. Mana is granted by
people PRAYing to them (with bigger bonuses for more units/
people, and very big bonuses for doing it in a temple).

These kinds of powers would mean that the gods remained
seperate from the players, but still had a certain amount
of 'indirect' influence in the world.

Okay, so lots of this isn't origional its my own ideas worked
in with the others already presented.

In particular the religions have a lot in common with the guilds
(only able to join one church,
quicker learning of certain skills)

With the 'god' being in a similar position to the guild master.

I dislike the automatic +2 attitude towards fellow church members
-2 towards other churchs. Even in the Greek myths the gods were
aligned with and against each other. I prefer the idea of being
able to set what your religion feels towards a particular
other religion/guild/faction/indervidual.

So, what about requirements for God hood?

Well, level 10 in a skill would seem to be a definite prerequisite.
Which skill you have level 10 in, would determine what your sphere
of influence would be. Maybe level 10 in one of the subskills
as well (if the gods area of influcence has subskills).

Probably a large and loyal faction would also be necessary.

Control of some relivant artifact would also seem to be helpful.
This conflicts a little with the idea that gods can create
artifacts (the only way you can become a god of X is to
hold the relivant artifact, but the artifact of X was created
by the god X etc).

And the compulsary quest of course :-)

Well, this has gone on too long already...

Bill (aka Merlinium the grey, plague spreader of Olympia)


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