[MUD-Dev] Gods, worshipers and the balance

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 17 Jan 98 at 11:27, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Sat 13 Dec, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > [Vadim Tkachenko:]
> 
> > > - Universe should preserve the balance (hopefully).
> 
> *shrug* I don't see that as of paramount importance.
> 

It is of paramount importance.  Technically all these power transfers 
between clerics, followers and deities should allow for a long running 
game.  They all boil down to equations in the code.  The system should
be stable enough to have imbalances to occur yet have the ability 
to recover from them.  I'd hate to see the devil bounced out of play after 
the servers only been running for a week. ;)

> 
> > 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.
> 
> Actually churches usually have little to do with religion but a lot with
> social organisation and pressure on the people to behave in certain ways

Churches have everything to do with religion, both in RL and most fiction. 
The two items you list as having little to do with religion are very
intrinsic parts of all modern and ancient religions even ones without
churches.
Without religion, the church would have no means or foundation of 
existence.  That is, a church may not exist without religion, but a 
religion may exist without churches.  OTOH, there has been some interesting 
modern fiction in this genre. (L.R. Hubbard <splurgh>)

> In part this was beneficial,  because it prevented the worst excesses of
> powerfull people but for the most part it has been used to repress.  This
> of course has little relevance in a mud where you can organise things as
> you see fit.

For the most part, repression is a beneficial thing to any society whether
it comes from religious institutions or not.  Don't confuse oppression with 
repression.  Murder is repressed.  Stealing is repressed.  Oppression is 
unjust repression.  Local repression is a very interesting item to 
implement within a mud to add color and depth.  It can cover wide ranges 
of character actions from the reasonable to the improbable.

> You forget the situation  where a priestess is doing her God's bidding,
> like e.g. protecting the Sacred Forest from defilers. She would need to
> pray more often to accomplish her task as she on herself has no special
> powers unless they're granted her by her God.  In your example it would
> be increasingly difficult for the priestess to protect her forest.  You
> need to find some way  to recognise what a prayer is to be used for and
> decrease or increase the God's favour accordingly. Also the need should
> be taken into account.  A priestess who is hungry may pray for food and
> be given some manna  but lose some of her favour with her God.  If this
> priestess waits till she is starving and with her last breath prays for
> the same food she may receive it without loss of favour, simply because
> she relies on her God as a last resort.
>

A good idea and this one in particular is especially easy to implement. :)
 
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