Religion in JADE

[theotherhiveking]

Er, WinXP. Why? Is this another attempt by Epythic to hack my PC...? :P

Yes.. well, not.

If you were using linux you could do this

"ssh joshua@crawl.akrasiac.org"

password: joshua

So you could play crawl without having to download it, but, in windows you have to download a ssh client, with weights a lot more than the game itself.

Well, someone mentioned a chaotic god in stone soup that likes to poison PCs on low health etc. I imagine the Joker god as a less evil version of this, with some characteristic ADOM humour thrown into the mix.

this reminds me to..

http://greyfire.org/~sigmund/?issue=1

[Sradac]

Maybe put in temples for each god that can give specific quests for that diety, rewards could be a huge boost in piety and some kind of materialistic reward from the priests and monks there. On that note i think there should be specific locations for each class. The temple would give priests a place to go to learn spells\abilites\skills that they dont start with and only priests can learn, from priests. Kinda shine some light on some things, whenever I'd roll a necro in adom I would wonder, just HOW did this PC become a necro and where did he learn it? Some kinda sepulcher or necropolis or an old abandoned crypt with text and tomes about necromancy in there. I always thought the ToEF coulda been a really cool place for elementalists. Maybe give each class an "Epic" quest sorta like Everquest does it. Complete a huuuuge quest to get the Epic weapon armor robe, or whatever item it could be. It might not nececarily be the "most powerful" of its type but it should definatly have unique attributes not even an artifact could match. Maybe give wizards a wand that never runs out of charges but when it gets down to 0 it takes time to recharge, or a spell book that when read gives knowledge to a random spell and can only be read every x amount of turns to keep from scumming the book till you get 1000000 points in the wish spell. Staff of elemental mastery for an elementalist allows you to temporarily charm "elemental" type monsters for a short duration. Lots a cool stuff that could be done.

[Dougy]

Does a PC have to please one and only one god? A display screen could come up selecting which god you wish to sacrifice to or pray to (for simplicity you should be able to select a default). You would have to learn in-game of each god.

- A list of gods and their properties could be randomly generated at the start of the game. Some gods could be fixed and always exist in the game.
- You learn of gods by visiting temples, reading tracts, fortune cookies, drunkards, etc. Maybe your parents told you about one god at birth (eg. priests should be stuck with that god).
- Every action you take will affect every god (whether or not you know about that god). You cannot please everyone.
- The PC is not crowned L/N/C but rather crowned "Champion of <god>," which may or may not require a certain L/N/C alignment. Crowning gifts would be god-dependant.

[Epythic]

Yes.. well, not.

If you were using linux you could do this
"ssh joshua@crawl.akrasiac.org"

A very handy thing, yes. For windows users, I recommend PuTTY.

The other advantage is that you can play from wherever you are.

So you could play crawl without having to download it, but, in windows you have to download a ssh client, with weights a lot more than the game itself.

Anyway, SSH client = standard software.

this reminds me to..

http://greyfire.org/~sigmund/?issue=1

Whoa!! Great!

[Aerudaer]

Personally, I don't like it overly complex. Complexity is great, but at some point there is a decreasing rate of return to adding more. I would prefer a more involved system where you can only worship one at a time but there are many quests and levels of piety. I would also prefer only, say, 5 or 6, plus one per race. This would allow one or two per main archetype. A single one per race would act as a way to make race even more meaningful.

[Qui]

I agree that gods should be more difficult to please. Now it's way too easy, an altar and a bit of patience is quite enough. I also agree that each god should be different, but let's not overdo the numbers. A generic god of war, why not, but a few of them, one liking swords and wine, other one axes and monkey brains, other one spears and blue color and dancing owlbears... That would be overdoing it.

I think gods should be divided into a few general categories:

Major gods
The general, well known deities. Probably a few of the generic war/wisdom/healing/etc, also those of the most common races if racial gods will be still present. They have so many followers that one more or one less doesn't matter much.

So it's easy to become a follower of one (altars in most cities), maybe get a (really) small blessing, but that's basically it. Leaving such god wouldn't have dire consequences (unless you're really devout long-term follower). Maybe he/she would send a pox-ridden beaver or something to show how little he/she cares.
On the other hand, getting somewhere with one of these would require a lot of time and effort. And danger of course. Becoming a champion would for sure require quite a few quests challenging even for a high-level PC and probably quite a lot of money to sacrifice. But it would be worth it. Blessings, great equipment, worldwide recognition (all priests and such swarming to help), etc.

Minor gods
These would be the racials of less common races or those of less common trades. Not that difficult to please, but much more jealous. Leaving one might upset him/her quite a lot, especially so if the PC switches allegiance to one of the major ones. In general, achieving mid-level piety would be easier than with major gods with similar effects. Becoming a champion, while still difficult, also should be much easier. On the other hand, benefits from this would be less impressive. Not so much/so good equipment, less powerful blessings, less recognition (and sometimes hostility).

Forgotten gods
Or whatever you call them. Somewhat mysterious pack. Could contain gods of long-gone races, ascended mortals, powerful astral creatures, or whatever the Creator comes up with. Hard to find, could be tricky to please, with results uncertain. They might make the PC as powerful as champions of major gods, or even more so, for less effort. Or they might just give him some worthless junk and tell him to go away. Or even curse him. Who knows?
The whole idea of these is to provide some excitement and uncertainty which is absent from the major and minor religions. Just imagine finding a deserted altar of an unknown entity somewhere in middle of nowhere. Should the PC try to please that entity or quickly run away? What would it like? What would it want? (well, some kind of communication would be needed... some mysterious scrolls maybe or suchlike) Is it worth abandoning the god you serve now? Possibilities are endless.

[deepshock]

I wonder what chosen prayer options would be like. Rather than a tier, you'd be able to type them out like wishes, or choose a letter from a list. Piety costs would be represented by how "Major" the prayer is. Ex: Full heal would be "Moderate", removing dooming would be "Extreme", curing stunning would be "Minor".

[BenMathiesen]

Very interesting discussion, this. Grey, you've got some excellent ideas--I really like the concept of hidden gods.

Just a minor note: I've always felt that racial gods are overkill--for ADOM, you almost double the number.

If it were my game, I would just each god an array of names (one for each race) and racial preferences (kind of like shopkeepers).

But it's Thomas' game, and the choice depends on the world's larger backstory!

Cheers,
Ben

[Dougy]

I personally feel that the gods should have some random flavour to them. The interesting thing is that you would need to find out about your god in game. I.e. you won't know what (s)he likes until you try it, or read about it in a tract.

Finding an alter of your god is not a problem, since altars can be converted. Finding out about some gods should be challanging and the PC would have to delay crowning. Other gods should be easy to find out about (with lesser rewards). Worshipping some gods will annoy other gods, i.e. if you worship a chaos god it would annoy a god of order.

For example:

god A
- fond of animals and does not like you killing or sacrificing them, while healing them makes him/her happy
- very pleased when you kill/sacrifice chaotic or evil creatures, not too excited about neutral and does not like you killing/saccing good creatures
- enjoys it when you use fire magic, via a spell, wand or weapon
god B
- likes it when you steal from a thief, slay a slayer, etc.
- likes the use of confusion, stun, death ray, etc.
- enjoys it when you kill any moster by indirect means, eg. traps, pets, etc.
- enjoys sacrifices of every creature

[IronJelly]

I had a weird thought today about racial gods.

What if there are racial gods for all the playable races (and maybe some not playable ones), but they are all demented, and work to turn you into a member of their race if you worship them. It starts out easy enough as species X (you), worshipping the god of species Y. After some worship, the beneficial traits of species Y start appearing within you (ie, a worshipper of the dwarf god is going to be tougher and hairier than other members of his species), but eventually, once that is maxed, late enough into the game to prevent doing it more than once, your born traits start to disappear, and you eventually find yourself more species Y than species X, much to the sorrow of your own species and their god.

Ok, no more smoking for me. carry on your previous conversation.