[MUD-Dev] Gods, worshipers and the balance

[Adam Wiggins]

[Vadim Tkachenko:]
> - Universe should preserve the balance (hopefully).
> - Every time cleric prays to his/her God, they gain some energy which
> then can spend somehow.
> - From the balance standpoint, their God's energy level should decrease
> - which is meaningless from the religious point of view - all the
> history shows that the greater the number of some God's worshipers, the
> stronger that God
> - which means that energy levels of both God and worshiper increase as
> they interact
> - which throws the balance completely out of balance.

I always saw it more like the relationship of an elephant to those
birds that sit on top of them and pick off parasites.

A god's power is proportional to the life-energy his followers give
to him (in the form of prayer, sacrifice, or whatever).

Followers can pray for 'mana' of some sort with which they can do
whatever.

Thus, the god becomes a sort of power converter - turning prayer and
sacrifice into usable mana.
There's some other cool stuff about this.  It's best for all the followers
of a god to be organized into some sort of church.  This church can grant
or deny entry to potential followers.  This keeps people from hogging
the god's power - taking more mana than they contribute in life-force.
It's basically magic, but there's a group pool up there in the sky that
every follower has to share, bringing in some very interesting group
dynamics.

Now, we took a similar but slightly different route with our deties.
The bit about the life-force is more or less the same.  However, clerics
pray for specific things rather than energy.  Each player has a favor
value with each god (which can be negative if they don't like you, or
0 if they don't care about you).  They also have a debt level - how much
the god feels they 'owe' you.  The cleric who sits devoutly praying each
day and never asking anything of his god will be able to get whatever
he wants when he finally does pray, because his debt is very high.  The
cleric that is constantly calling on her god will have less debt, and
thus less of a response from her god each time she calls on them.
Gods have simple personality algorithms which control how they behave.
For instance, calling on a destructive god for healing won't make her very
happy with you, although she may still go ahead and do it if you're high
in her favor or debt.  Most gods go through mood swings, which has the
interesting effect of:

 ] n
 You enter the monestary.
 Brother Bubba is here.
 ] ' how's she feel today?
 You say, 'how's she feel today?'
 Brother Bubba says, 'She's PISSED.  If I were you I'd lie low...'

Gods also have a limit to the power they can draw at any one time.  Thus
if lots of clerics are asking big favors at the same time, some of them
may get ignored or denied despite the fact that they are perfectly well
in favor.

Lastly, we do a lot of 'automatic' god effects.  For a simple example:

 You are in a forest path.
 An unshaven man with a big sword is standing here.
 ] ' good day my friend, kindly let me pass?
 An unshaven man says, 'Think again, god-boy...'
 An unshaven man leaps at you, sword upraised!
 A flash of light blinds you for a moment, and then Ominar, Avatar of
  your goddess Celendria, stands before you!
 The unshaven man's sword crashes down on Ominar's silvery shield.
 Ominar cries, 'Stay thy blade, foul unbeliever!'
 Ominar smashes the hilt of his silvery sword into the unshaven man's skull.
 The unshaven man crashes to the ground, unconscious.
 Ominar smiles at you, and is gone in a flash of light.

Slightly more subtle stuff is things like the nature god giving you
a bonus to your luck rolls if you're carrying an acorn, or resistance
to offensive spells if you're wearing a vest woven from thistledown.
Naturally this isn't made obvious to the players.  We give them hints
about this sort of thing through books or their church (if there is one),
and in many cases purposely mislead them ("the god Hern is known to smile
upon followers of his that wear crowns made of poison ivy").

> Okay, now my solution for that (I *DO* realize, not the only one :-):
> 
> - I should (well, at least I want) to preserve the balance.
> - Energy levels of both God and worshiper _should_ increase, in game.
> - to preserve the balance, I introduce anti-god - some entity which
> exists on the material plane and is the exact opposite to the given God.
> 
> Now, the question is - 'what do you mean, opposite?' Well, that's a
> tough question, so far I was able to formulate that as 'opposite
> alignment' (which explains, BTW, why I pay so much attention to it) -
> actually, this message is a request for new ideas.
> 
> Then,
> 
> - no obvious link between the god and anti-god exists.
> 
> For example, given that the God is good, the anti-god is evil, it's a
> monster, and lives somewhere - this creates a funny possibility that the
> good worshipers of that good God will announce a quest to eliminate that
> evil abomination, and ... 

This would be particularly interesting if both the god and the anti-god
were players.