Religion in a group of players (Set - Mitra)

[Valaryc]

Hi!

i have a little problem with my group of players and want to hear some other oppinions.


say you have a player that wants to play a full fledged stygian character. so he will play a follower of set or the other stygian gods...perhaps even a scholar with sorcerous abilities.

another player wants to play an aquilonian noble / knight (perhaps even closely to a "crusader" style character?). so he will preach to mitra.

the third is a nemedian chronicler/sage/scholar who follows the cult of ibis.

:arrow: the requirements for mitra ("faith & fervour")...do not..associate with sorcerers.oppose those who...traffic with demons

:arrow: requirements for ibis....report any set worshipping to your nearest priest of ibis. publicly oppose those who...traffic with demons.
if he wants to become a priest even more: must be willing to fight set & his minions wherever they are found..even at personal risk.

:arrow: requirements for set... no problems with these inferior religions :wink:


how do / can you solve the problem with these backgrounds? have the player to make a "deal" with each other at character creation which religion (= which race they come from) they take?

i think character creation takes too long just for a duel between 3 characters for "religious darwinism".

i would like to hear your oppinions

 

[Faraer]

The Set worshipper is a villain, not a suitable PC if you have any intent of emulating the Conan stories.

 

[VincentDarlage]

The Set worshipper could take the superhero route and keep his Set-worship secret lest someone take his powers away from him. Or just have him table the character for later.

Or maybe they just don't discuss the issue. I have worked with some people for years and I don't have a clue what religion they are.

The Mitra-worshipper doesn't have to be particularly devout, either.

 

[Dpetroc]

Hi!

i have a little problem with my group of players and want to hear some other oppinions.


say you have a player that wants to play a full fledged stygian character. so he will play a follower of set or the other stygian gods...perhaps even a scholar with sorcerous abilities.

another player wants to play an aquilonian noble / knight (perhaps even closely to a "crusader" style character?). so he will preach to mitra.

the third is a nemedian chronicler/sage/scholar who follows the cult of ibis.

:arrow: the requirements for mitra ("faith & fervour")...do not..associate with sorcerers.oppose those who...traffic with demons

:arrow: requirements for ibis....report any set worshipping to your nearest priest of ibis. publicly oppose those who...traffic with demons.
if he wants to become a priest even more: must be willing to fight set & his minions wherever they are found..even at personal risk.

:arrow: requirements for set... no problems with these inferior religions :wink:


how do / can you solve the problem with these backgrounds? have the player to make a "deal" with each other at character creation which religion (= which race they come from) they take?

i think character creation takes too long just for a duel between 3 characters for "religious darwinism".

i would like to hear your oppinions

As Ibis is a 'renegade' Stygian diety, why can't the Stygian simply be a subversive who worships Ibis?

 

[Valaryc]

thanks so far....

"the Set worshipper is a villain, not a suitable PC if you have any intent of emulating the Conan stories."

? ? ? seems you like simple black & white roleplaying buddy so you don't allow a "normal stygian" character because of his religious indoctrination?
what if the stygian player wants to play a character concept of a stygian priest that has to leave his land (political / personal / family reasons) and begins to become more and more "free" from set ?

sorry..but the "it's not in the books" is not my solution

"The Set worshipper could take the superhero route and keep his Set-worship secret..."

hmm...i think this would be quite difficult....i would think nearly every aquilonian EXPECTS that every stygian man/woman worships set

"Or maybe they just don't discuss the issue. I have worked with some people for years and I don't have a clue what religion they are. "

i think this is the same problem....the aquilonian expects it. and i tdon't think you can transfer religion today to a "dark medieval world". in the dark ages (around the crusades) every man from the arab lands would be branded as a possible heretic.

"The Mitra-worshipper doesn't have to be particularly devout, either."

even if my player won't play a devout concept...what do you do if the player wants the faith benefit from his religion and "has to be" a worshiper? he has to fulfill the requirements for mitra and that means...trouble with the stygian


i know...it's a extreme situation....but never the less...if the stygian player wants to play his "priest in exile" concept with a change of personality in future.....there have to be a possibility to "survive first mitra contact"

"As Ibis is a 'renegade' Stygian diety, why can't the Stygian simply be a subversive who worships Ibis?"

THAT seems to be a damn good idea it would match the "dark mind" of a stygian priest. nice one !

 

[worldeater]

the stygian could also just be posing as a shemite or a chaga or something. how is some dumb aquilonian gonna know?

one of my favorite characters i've played ever was essentially a stygian sorcerer. aaah good times. so many sacrificial victims, so many power points.

 

[Krushnak]

make sure the stygian puts ranks in bluff and know(religion) to convince the others he's given up set for ibis and just dont allow the other players to metagame around it.

i always dislike the crusader/paladin character because they inevitably think that they have some god given right to dictate to the party how they should act and what they should do, it gets frustrating especially when they are meant to just lead by example and not be the parties personal tyrant.

 

[argo]

say you have a player that wants to play a full fledged stygian character. so he will play a follower of set or the other stygian gods...perhaps even a scholar with sorcerous abilities.

another player wants to play an aquilonian noble / knight (perhaps even closely to a "crusader" style character?). so he will preach to mitra.

the third is a nemedian chronicler/sage/scholar who follows the cult of ibis.

As written this group of PC's is a non-starter. Simple as that. You have a few options to address this.

Metagame: get the players together and have them work it out before play begins. This will most likely require the Stygian to alter his character as he is the odd-man-out. The idea of a "Stygian Renegade" posed above is one possible answer. Another would be for the Stygian to table this character concept and come up with something else.

Can You Keep A Secret: the Stygian will conceal his faith from the others. Problem is sooner or later it will out and then you are back where you started. I suppose you could also have it that the Mitrian and Nemedian are concealing their identities but that doesn't make much sense unless they are adventuring in Stygia for some reason and you still wind up with the problem that sooner or later it will all come out and then the knives get drawn.

Deus Ex: you invent a plot reason why these people "have to work together". Don't know if your players can stomach that.

Beer and Pretzels: who cares about roleplay? The PC's accept each other because they are PC's and get on with the killing of monsters and the taking of stuff.



Personally I encuorage my players to cooperate in character creation to produce a group that more-or-less pulls together.


Hope that helps.

 

[Ichabod]

I would say something similar to argo.

Party creation shouldn't just be individual character creation. The GM and (directly or indirectly through the GM) the players should have a part in every PC created to avoid having parties that can't plausibly function together.

Multiple highly religious characters who have different religions is frequently troublesome even if you didn't have such obvious problems (I don't find Mitra and Ibis terribly compatible either).

By the way, it would be far more interesting to me to have an Aquilonian crusader who followed Asura or a Stygian deity or pretty much anybody but Mitra. PCs should tend to be anything besides stereotypes. Similarly, rather than a Stygian PC being Set-happy, could focus on one or more of the other deities in the rather expansive pantheon laid out in the Stygia book.

 

[Oly]

I'll go with those that say that character creation should be a group effort. As a GM I don't see it as my problem to worry about how to get the PCs to be able to work together, that's there problem to work out.

In the end some extremes just don't work together. In Star Wars you couldn't really have a Sith and a Jedi happily working together on the same team. Well not unless there's some really good story and character reason as to why it could happen.

Throw the problem back that the players, you might be surprised with what they work out between them all and it could give you an awful lot of story hooks.

 

[emirikol]

We have a rule for all players: tell the group and the DM WHY your two characters get along.

It isn't a question of "IF" but "WHY."



jh
If you've got a deliberately antagonistic player, maybe consider a replacement

 

[Valaryc]

-> As written this group of PC's is a non-starter. Simple as that. <-

sorry....but that is a bad solution! perhaps it depends on your players... but ROLEplaying gives you always a solution! so if a player dearly wants to play a stygian because he likes "egypt" you won't allow it because you think it is a "non-starter" ???? not very open minded i think

whatever....thanks everybody for your solutions !!!!

i think i will go for the "undercover stygian" that worships Ibis.... or makes the other believe he/she does

 

[argo]

-> As written this group of PC's is a non-starter. Simple as that. <-

sorry....but that is a bad solution! perhaps it depends on your players... but ROLEplaying gives you always a solution! so if a player dearly wants to play a stygian because he likes "egypt" you won't allow it because you think it is a "non-starter" ???? not very open minded i think

Meh, I'm simply pointing out that, given the characters as described in the OP, by any reasonable standard of ROLE-playing :roll: that those people would dislike/distrust each other, possibly hate each other, have no reason to work together and may even desire to harm each other depending on how zealous they are. In short there is no reasonable expecation that those characters would choose to share fortune, fate and rely on each other for their survival.

Getting around that either requires that the GM impose a plot reason why He-Man and Skeletor have to work together or else the players metagame/ignore the problem. Or somebody re-writes their character until the group clicks.

I perfer the third option. YMMV

Oh, and for the record I have GM'd for an evil Stygian sorcorer in a non-stygian party. It was great fun and great role-play. However the other players brought morally-ambiguious soldier-of-fortune types to the table, not a crusader knight of Mitra.

Later.

 

[Ankhe]

Sounds like a fun party once its all settled and done, do post and tell how its resolved.

There is a similar-ish pot of inter PC destruction brewing slowly in my game with a half fish-man from the pictlands (has kept his heritage to himself and not yet shown physical changes), his buddy Tae Song the khitian scholar/soldier who loves his curses, Duftah the cimmerian who loathes demons & wizards with an unforgiving passion (from experience) and the "don't look at me like that" stygian archer getting to know each other better as the adventures roll by...

 

[rgrove0172]

Meh, I'm simply pointing out that, given the characters as described in the OP, by any reasonable standard of ROLE-playing that those people would dislike/distrust each other, possibly hate each other, have no reason to work together and may even desire to harm each other depending on how zealous they are. In short there is no reasonable expecation that those characters would choose to share fortune, fate and rely on each other for their survival.

I couldnt agree more. We got accustomed to such unlikely situations in our old D&D games where vastly different alignments somehow overlooked thier differences and campaigned together, but in truth, its rediculous from a realistic standpoint. We might force a situation like this for the player's and a game's sake but I doubt you would find a Howard story where these kinds of differences in philosophy tolerated one another.

 

[Valaryc]

Sounds like a fun party once its all settled and done, do post and tell how its resolved.

here it is...

character creation has been made seperatly and without any "discussion" between the players.

1. Stygian sorceress that has left stygia on the flight because of some serious family troubles (-> thread for further adventures because her brother seeks revenge). to hide from the hunters (mundane and magical) she travelled through "enemy territory" (aka aquilonia) and to the westermarck. worked as "councillor" for local nobles / governors and advisor against the black shamans of the picts...of course nobody liked her

2. Cimmerian Barbarian...doesn't care for religion because they are weak to worship animals like the snake. Crom will take care of him.

3. aquilonian knight on his tour for glory to impress his father and gain a reputation as a hero not fully faithfull to mitra but sees it as a "social necessity"....doesn't like stygians

4. aesir barbarian....dooesn't care about her devilish gods....but likes her breasts

--> started with Across the thunder river

stygian sorceress kept her worship to a minimum....sacrificed picts only if nobody was near her or watched her often she was the only way to counter pictish black magic.

knight eyed her suspiciously and spoke some threats ("if you sacrifice a human life....mitra will judge you...after my sword did it!"). her luck was a horny nordman that watched over her (and of course over her breasts).
after some time of playing...and after some life threatining situations (including saving the sorceress from pictish slavery / death with the help of aquilonian swords...aesir axes & swords...and a mad hacking cimmerian) the sorceress eyed her "arrogant status" with different eyes...for the first time she was confronted with three different cultures...and religions. fascinated by the way of life of the cimmerian and the aesir...she begins to think about her religious indoctrination.....and perhaps will lessen her degree of worship the snake.

only time will show.

 

[Willowhugger]

*necromancy*

One thing to remember about Howard is the fact that Set worship isn't really something Conan has a problem with. The whole "Set is an Arch-demon" thing is TOLD to Conan but he never agrees.

He's happily helped out Set worshipers in the past.