The Cleric sucks ... or discuss the Cleric

[raniE]

The point in question is not 'does the setting distinguish magic and religion' but 'does in distinguish between the supernatural powers assigned to religious figures (priests) and those assigned to magicians'. We are talking about playing a fantasy RPG. If a given setting does not assign special supernatural powers to priests, then of course they should not be a separate class, any more than there should be a special class for people who specialize in wire-drawing, or counting the number of angels that dance on pin-heads.

No, the point in question has always been "is the Cleric a strange inclusion in D&D and various OSR games." The fact that you can find a few fantasy stories written after D&D came out in which it is possible that priests have magic powers wildly separate from sorcerers, and that if one does a deep dive into anthropology one can see differences between religiously sanctioned magical practices, and religiously unsanctioned ones is irrelevant to the question of whether the Cleric is a class that has a clear role.

IIRC, it is fairly clear in the story that he could, he just chooses not to.

The book is about sorcery and sorcerers. It doesn't deal with divine magic in any depth, any more than a story about gangsters is likely to detail what legitimate businessmen do. The quote I gave above is from one of the top sorcerers in that world and, unless you have counter-evidence, I'd say it is a good prima-facie indication that (1) there is divine magic in the world and (2) it is quite different from sorcery (i.e. what D&D would call magic).

To put the shoe on the other foot, where in either the historical and mythical materials or the genre literature that went into the inspiration for D&D is there evidence that the supernatural power of religious figures and magic are just the same thing? I'm sure there are examples, but what are they? My guess is that, for literature at least, most cases are quite ambiguous. Magic or the supernatural in such stories is above all a plot device; authors rarely spend any time discussing its nature.

The main point has mostly been that there are no supernatural powers of religious figures in most of the source material. There's nothing there to separate category A from category B because category B is an empty set. But where there is, mostly it is the same thing. Every wizard in the Lord of the Rings (of which we see pretty much two) is an angel sent down to the world by God. Sauron is a fallen angel, that's where all his powers come from. You have to scrape to find any material with much distinction from before D&D, all three of the ones we're talking about now came out after the game. Whether or not they were influenced by it is irrelevant, we can be certain that D&D was not influenced by them.

Finally, what is the big gain in not distinguishing between religious supernatural powers and magic? Obviously, it makes things simpler, but is there any real advantage beyond that?

Yes, it makes the rule set far more generically usable, which is good for a game that is not supposed to have any particular setting. If you are making a game tightly bound to a specific campaign world where there is a clear distinction between priestly magic and the stuff practiced by sorcerers, make that distinction in your game rules. If you're going for something more generic, do not. The distinction doesn't show up in most fantasy and is far easier to add in if you want to than to take out if you don't want it.

 

[VisionStorm]

Finally, what is the big gain in not distinguishing between religious supernatural powers and magic? Obviously, it makes things simpler, but is there any real advantage beyond that?

That's all the advantage it needs for me, TBH. All of the distinctions I've seen between religiously sanctioned vs unsanctioned uses of magic/supernatural powers are largely stylistic and culturally normative. That culture X sees calling upon supernatural forces outside the Church or Priesthood as "bad" tells me how to RP characters and NPCs in that world, but not that there are key mechanical distinctions that necessitate a different system to handle each style of magic. That tends to be the most relevant issue for me as far as RPGs are concerned, since mechanics are the thing that determines what I need to do to make things work when running the game. The rest is mostly RP, or maybe situational bonuses or access to different summoned creatures, like how Shadowrun handles the difference between Hermetic Mages vs Shamans.

 

[Toadmaster]

I'd say the average person knows bupkis about Greece, modern or ancient (actually probably even less about modern Greece). I'm into myths and the classics and Cold War history, which Greece has a tragic role in, but that is very, very much the exception in RL.

I recall meeting the partner of a co-worker on a campus while they were walking their dog and I asked what the name of the dog was.

She said Hector and I asked if he was named after the character in the Iliad and she was shocked that someone knew the reference. And we both worked on an arts campus.

I'd disagree to a point. Agree that the average person probably doesn't have a deep knowledge, but at least in regards to Arthurian Legend, Greek, Norse and Egyptian mythology they have been exposed to it through the media.
Maybe not deep dives with good historical (accurate) content, but someone who has seen films like Excalibur, Jason & the Argonauts or even 300 or The Mummy (1999) will have a deeper knowledge about a game set in these worlds than they will Glorantha or Greyhawk. Lots of kids films dabble in mythology as well, El Dorado and The Emperors New Groove being two examples. Not in the least historically accurate but they do have a loose base in ancient South American history.

 

[Lofgeornost]

No, the point in question has always been "is the Cleric a strange inclusion in D&D and various OSR games." The fact that you can find a few fantasy stories written after D&D came out in which it is possible that priests have magic powers wildly separate from sorcerers, and that if one does a deep dive into anthropology one can see differences between religiously sanctioned magical practices, and religiously unsanctioned ones is irrelevant to the question of whether the Cleric is a class that has a clear role.

Well, that's your question. It's not mine, so perhaps we are merely talking at cross-purposes.

The main point has mostly been that there are no supernatural powers of religious figures in most of the source material. There's nothing there to separate category A from category B because category B is an empty set. But where there is, mostly it is the same thing. Every wizard in the Lord of the Rings (of which we see pretty much two) is an angel sent down to the world by God. Sauron is a fallen angel, that's where all his powers come from. You have to scrape to find any material with much distinction from before D&D, all three of the ones we're talking about now came out after the game. Whether or not they were influenced by it is irrelevant, we can be certain that D&D was not influenced by them.

I would agree about Middle Earth, on the whole. There clearly is some other magic going on in the setting--creation of magic swords, the magic door to Moria, etc. But it's a low-magic setting (in RPG terms) without explicit religions. So it doesn't show priests or their equivalents at all and I certainly wouldn't include a cleric class in a Middle Earth game. Nor, if I was going to hew close to Tolkien, would I allow magic-user characters in such a game. So though it did influence OD&D in some respects, I don't think it had a lot of impact on the game's view of magic.

As to the broader claim that 'religious figures have no supernatural powers in most of the source material' I'm not convinced one way or another. It would be interesting to look at a much broader range of examples. As I said above, I don't think it is particularly relevant if a source includes priests etc. that do not have such supernatural powers, since the class does not need to represent all priests, only those that do have such powers.

The Elric stories, at least as much as I remember them, do support your contention that magical powers and the supernatural powers of clergy are the same. Jagreen Lern, the theocrat of Pan Tang, is clearly a priest who has supernatural abilities, but these don't seem fundamentally different than those of Elric, or of the magician Theleb K'aarna, as far as I can recall. The fundamental mechanism of magic tends to be summoning extraplanar creatures.

As to the examples I've been using so far, they occurred to me simply because they are things I have been reading in the last couple of months. I've not read either Leiber or Howard (for example) in years, so I really don't remember how they deal with this issue. It would be interesting to find out.

Yes, it makes the rule set far more generically usable, which is good for a game that is not supposed to have any particular setting. If you are making a game tightly bound to a specific campaign world where there is a clear distinction between priestly magic and the stuff practiced by sorcerers, make that distinction in your game rules. If you're going for something more generic, do not. The distinction doesn't show up in most fantasy and is far easier to add in if you want to than to take out if you don't want it.

Very clear. I am uncertain as to whether "the distinction doesn't show up in most fantasy." Personally, I find it easier to ignore classes I don't like or want rather than adding in ones that aren't in the rules, but that's a matter of individual approach, I suppose.

 

[Lofgeornost]

That's all the advantage it needs for me, TBH. All of the distinctions I've seen between religiously sanctioned vs unsanctioned uses of magic/supernatural powers are largely stylistic and culturally normative. That culture X sees calling upon supernatural forces outside the Church or Priesthood as "bad" tells me how to RP characters and NPCs in that world, but not that there are key mechanical distinctions that necessitate a different system to handle each style of magic. That tends to be the most relevant issue for me as far as RPGs are concerned, since mechanics are the thing that determines what I need to do to make things work when running the game. The rest is mostly RP, or maybe situational bonuses or access to different summoned creatures, like how Shadowrun handles the difference between Hermetic Mages vs Shamans.

Fair enough. If you're interested, you might want to look at the stuff I spoilered above from The Mask of the Sorcerer for an example of a setting where divine magic and non-divine are so distinct that they would need different systems (IMO).

Likewise, if I were designing a game based on Europe c. 1300 in which players could be (in effect) saints, I would want a different system for that than for 'secular' magic, because the miracles of saints were supposed to be so different in their nature than the various ways magic could be worked. And as a number of people have pointed out upthread, legends about the saints are one of the sources for the D&D cleric--though the D&D cleric departed pretty far from that.

I guess one underlying issue here is whether one views outcomes or mechanisms as more important. If all one focuses on is supernatural effects, then there is less reason to distinguish one type of 'magic' from another. If one focuses on how (in the game reality) these effects are achieved, then there may be.

 

[AsenRG]

I'd disagree to a point. Agree that the average person probably doesn't have a deep knowledge, but at least in regards to Arthurian Legend, Greek, Norse and Egyptian mythology they have been exposed to it through the media.
Maybe not deep dives with good historical (accurate) content, but someone who has seen films like Excalibur, Jason & the Argonauts or even 300 or The Mummy (1999) will have a deeper knowledge about a game set in these worlds than they will Glorantha or Greyhawk. Lots of kids films dabble in mythology as well, El Dorado and The Emperors New Groove being two examples. Not in the least historically accurate but they do have a loose base in ancient South American history.

You might as well argue that whoever has seen 300 or The Mummy will have an equally valid knowledge, applicable to Glorantha as well...
Because that's the level of historical research that went into those movies is such that the fantasy setting in question might well be the one closer to reality!

Also, yes, I see very real benefits in NOT distinguishing between clerical and sorcerous magic. Namely:
1) It makes it more applicable to a broad variety of settings.
2) Should it ever be needed, it's always easier to separate the magic by "schools" and assign separate effects to separate schools - some schools might as well be clerical ones. Conversely, combining two different classes meant to function together is a headache I don't need.
And anyway, the broad variety of settings doesn't make such a distinction.
3) It opens the possibility for more than two kinds of magic. I see your distinction between clerical and occult magic, and raise you five more schools - namely, apart from your Theism and Sorcery, my system of choice has got Folk Magic, Animism, Demon Summoning, Ascetic magic and Psionics (granted, two of them are in supplements).
If you need a setting with more than one kind of magic...why stop at two?

 

[Lofgeornost]

If it helps, historically most cultures differentiated between "sanctioned" supernatural effects and unsanctioned ones. Sanctioned meaning beseeching the correct gods or higher beings (often those approved by the state) in the correct manner.

Non-religious magic often took the form of by-passing the gods' will by appealing to forces beyond them or "binding" them. Most often however "magic" involved invoking the wrong gods. Such as going to the Yōkai rather than the Kami or appealing to beings outside Ahura Mazda's Court in Persia.

Probably a few ways to depict that in a game.

That's certainly true. Depending on what you want to emphasize in the game, treating all forms of supernatural power as the same rules-wise, or differentiating between them, could make perfect sense.

The context I am most familiar with in this regard is Early Modern Europe. There you can certainly find 'sanctioned' supernatural effects in the miracles of saints, or sacraments (or sacramentals), exorcisms, etc. But 'secular' magicians might also invoke God or the saints, or use Christian symbols, in their operations. Or they might claim to practice natural magic based on astrological forces or other occult connections, without invoking any intelligent agents in their magic. Others might call on demons, or fairies, or 'planetary spirits' as part of their magical procedure. Some magical practitioners claimed their powers derived from their own innate characteristics, or were only available to people with certain bloodlines or backgrounds, while other types of magic were seen as simply a matter of learning the correct procedures, or making the right kind of pacts with spirits. So there is a lot of variety.

Interestingly, the Early Modern period also provided one of the major sources for the idea that religious supernatural power and magic are simply the same thing. This emerges in Protestant critiques of Catholicism, which equate Catholic liturgy and practices to spells and priests to conjurors. It is then picked up by some philosophes in the Enlightenment, though with a different spin. For Protestant controversialists in the 16th and 17th centuries, the point was that Catholic priests were like magicians--which, in their view, were bad people indeed. They didn't doubt (for the most part) that magical procedures had some effectiveness. In the Enlightenment, the point became that religion, like magic, was an empty con game. Neither one achieved the supernatural effects that it claimed.

If the view that religious supernatural power and magic are the same thing is to be found in early fantasy, I would speculate that it comes in largely through that Enlightenment critique. You can find the Enlightenment critique in Burroughs' Barsoom, for instance, where the religion of the Red Martians turns out to be deception dreamed up by and for the benefit of others. Of course, there is no magic on Barsoom, but if an author begins with the idea that 'religion and magic are just the same thing--i.e. bunk' in reality, it's not hard to imagine that he or she might put this into fiction as well.

 

[Lofgeornost]

3) It opens the possibility for more than two kinds of magic. I see your distinction between clerical and occult magic, and raise you five more schools - namely, apart from your Theism and Sorcery, my system of choice has got Folk Magic, Animism, Demon Summoning, Ascetic magic and Psionics (granted, two of them are in supplements).
If you need a setting with more than one kind of magic...why stop at two?

Well, yes--and no. Here it becomes largely a matter of semantics. If there are 7 different 'schools' of magic and a character is limited to a single school, then in many ways what you have is 7 different classes of magic users, rather than 1. Unless there is a lot about being a 'magic user' that is the same across all 7 or whatever schools.

 

[raniE]

You might as well argue that whoever has seen 300 or The Mummy will have an equally valid knowledge, applicable to Glorantha as well...
Because that's the level of historical research that went into those movies is such that the fantasy setting in question might well be the one closer to reality!

Also, yes, I see very real benefits in NOT distinguishing between clerical and sorcerous magic. Namely:
1) It makes it more applicable to a broad variety of settings.
2) Should it ever be needed, it's always easier to separate the magic by "schools" and assign separate effects to separate schools - some schools might as well be clerical ones. Conversely, combining two different classes meant to function together is a headache I don't need.
And anyway, the broad variety of settings doesn't make such a distinction.
3) It opens the possibility for more than two kinds of magic. I see your distinction between clerical and occult magic, and raise you five more schools - namely, apart from your Theism and Sorcery, my system of choice has got Folk Magic, Animism, Demon Summoning, Ascetic magic and Psionics (granted, two of them are in supplements).
If you need a setting with more than one kind of magic...why stop at two?

I can guarantee you that even someone very uncurious about the world around them will have far more knowledge going in about any setting set in our world than of any secondary world, when picking up either from scratch.

 

[Voros]

I can guarantee you that even someone very uncurious about the world around them will have far more knowledge going in about any setting set in our world than of any secondary world, when picking up either from scratch.

I think you're underestimating the abyss of ignorance of the average bear.

I have full grown cousins who don't know who Jimi Hendrix is and who think that Africa is a country: and Canada has a good public school system!

One of those cousins had vacationed in Greece several times and had no idea that ancient Greeks openly practiced homosexuality.

 

[raniE]

I think you're underestimating the abyss of ignorance of the average bear.

I have full grown cousins who don't know who Jimi Hendrix is and who think that Africa is a country: and Canada has a good public school system!

One of those cousins had vacationed in Greece several times and had no idea that ancient Greeks openly practiced homosexuality.

So? How much do they know about Glorantha? Thinking Africa is a country? That person knows Africa exists and is a name for a place. They probably have zero conception of anything called Cormyr and wouldn't even know it was a place name, much less what type of place, if you mentioned it. The person who has been to Greece is miles ahead of anyone coming into a secondary world blind. So you need to tell them that ancient Greeks openly practiced homosexuality. Okay, they've still physically been to the place, they can remember the terrain, the temperature, the humidity, the look of the people, probably the Acropolis or some other ancient buildings. You start gaming with a new secondary world, you start with absolutely nothing. Not just small cultural details, you have no idea about the geography or the physical properties of the world (how long is a day, how long is a week, how long is a year, are there seasons, how many moons are there, is this a planet or a cube of land set in water with a sky dome above it?) forget details like "what countries exist and what are some specific cultural practices they have". You know people who have been to Greece. You know exactly zero people who have physically been to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, or any other fantasy world.

 

[TJS]

If the secondary world is Star Wars the average geek seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of it. To the extent that whole live action big budget TV series aer being made for them.

 

[xanther]

Well, yes--and no. Here it becomes largely a matter of semantics. If there are 7 different 'schools' of magic and a character is limited to a single school, then in many ways what you have is 7 different classes of magic users, rather than 1. Unless there is a lot about being a 'magic user' that is the same across all 7 or whatever schools.

Agree to a degree, but if all have the same character progression aspects (XP, HP, number of spells, etc., just different spells can learn) would still call it a single class. At least that would be my semantic line.

For me I like this school approach and is what have done for several decades, but one school of magic (Common) is magic any spell caster can learn (it includes things like Detect Magic, Dispel Magic, etc.), otherwise you get to pick 2 or 3 of the schools (plus the Common school) to start.

One is not limited from acquiring skill in other schools as you progress by the rules, just a bit costly in XP and costly to find someone willing to teach you. That is why you need to join the Wizards Guild as a full member .

 

[raniE]

If the secondary world is Star Wars the average geek seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of it. To the extent that whole live action big budget TV series aer being made for them.

What is encyclopedic knowledge though? Wookiepedia, the Star Wars wiki, has a total of 166,310 articles. That's a lot. Wikipedia, the real world wiki, has a total of 6,293,194 articles in the English language, a lot more if you add in the non-English articles. Someone who knew as much about the Star Wars universe as the average person knows about the real world would have an insane level of understanding of the universe, beyond any of its creators.

For a comparison of how information dense different settings are, let's look at Glorantha. This is hailed as one of the most detailed secondary worlds in fantasy, gaming or not. It is insanely detailed, and the Guide to Glorantha comes in at 800 pages, full of info about the fictional world. The Encyclopedia Britannica 2010 edition is 32,640 pages.

There's just a huge level of difference between the knowledge available about a fictional world and the knowledge available about the real world. Earth is an incredibly dense setting. We're just immersed in it.

 

[Séadna]

What is encyclopedic knowledge though? Wookiepedia, the Star Wars wiki, has a total of 166,310 articles. That's a lot. Wikipedia, the real world wiki, has a total of 6,293,194 articles in the English language, a lot more if you add in the non-English articles. Someone who knew as much about the Star Wars universe as the average person knows about the real world would have an insane level of understanding of the universe, beyond any of its creators.

For a comparison of how information dense different settings are, let's look at Glorantha. This is hailed as one of the most detailed secondary worlds in fantasy, gaming or not. It is insanely detailed, and the Guide to Glorantha comes in at 800 pages, full of info about the fictional world. The Encyclopedia Britannica 2010 edition is 32,640 pages.

A load of that real world detail is just going to be things like "rocks", "air", "city", i.e. basic concepts that appear in fictional settings as well or more obscure topics that won't come up in either fictional settings or for most people in everyday life. The main distinctions between a game with a real life setting and a fictional setting in RPGs are stuff like polities, creatures and magic.

Genuinely just from people around me I think they'd hit the ground running quicker in a Westeros game than one set in Ancient Greece or Persia. There are tons of details about Ancient Greek daily life people won't know, Persian religion would be more unfamiliar than the Seven from GoT. Fantasy also tends to involve people with modern mind sets, where as more accurate games in the past might not. It's not clear to me that people will slot into a real world setting easier than a fictional one.

 

[TJS]

I don't think my players would have any less knowledge of Glorantha going in then they did in my Tang dynasty China game. (I suspect that Glorantha would be easier).

Unless people have a deep interest in history they tend to not really have much knowledge of history.

I could run a sword and sandal game fairly easily probably. A bit clash of the titans in feel. Ships, gods, minotaurs, labyrinths, witches on islands, men in skirts, centaurs with bows. Players would get the genre. I don't think actually setting it in Ancient Greece would necessarily be easier than use a secondary world made to play with these tropes.

Certainly if I said, "this game will be set in Corinth in the 14th year of the Peloponessian war make an appropriate charcter", most players would be lost unless I gave them a lot of help and eased them into it.

If I said this game is set in Westeros directly after the death of Joffrey Baratheon they'd probably have an easier time. Or Star Wars, straight after the destruction of the first death star.

 

[raniE]

I don't think my players would have any less knowledge of Glorantha going in then they did in my Tang dynasty China game. (I suspect that Glorantha would be easier).

Unless people have a deep interest in history they tend to not really have much knowledge of history.

I could run a sword and sandal game fairly easily probably. A bit clash of the titans in feel. Ships, gods, minotaurs, labyrinths, witches on islands, men in skirts, centaurs with bows. Players would get the genre. I don't think actually setting it in Ancient Greece would necessarily be easier than use a secondary world made to play with these tropes.

Certainly if I said, "this game will be set in Corinth in the 14th year of the Peloponessian war make an appropriate charcter", most players would be lost unless I gave them a lot of help and eased them into it.

If I said this game is set in Westeros directly after the death of Joffrey Baratheon they'd probably have an easier time. Or Star Wars, straight after the destruction of the first death star.

Do your players already know about Glorantha? Because when talking about dense settings, we have to assume players are going in blind. And if they do go in blind, then they know absolutely nothing about Glorantha, but they do know that China is a place, generally what Han Chinese people look like, they know what the Great Wall of China is etc. Just having a basic sense of geography of the world is putting you far ahead compared to any fictional setting. Denseness in a setting is also usually related to "how similar to our world is it", because settings generally cheat by having as much real world stuff as they can in there. Set a game on Barsoom. There are no horses or other familiar animals, the year is a different length, the seasons work differently etc. When I see people say "oh, people don't know anything about X historical periods" it's that they aren't particularly versed in specific cultural details. But when someone has no knowledge of a fictional setting? They don't even know that place exists, they have no idea of the geography of it, nothing at all.

Someone who has watched several seasons of Game of Thrones has already had a bunch of setting knowledge given to them. Take someone who has never watched the show or read the books and say "create a an appropriate character for Westeros in the first year of the war of five kings" and you'll get a player who has no idea what you're talking about.

 

[TJS]

Do your players already know about Glorantha?

I have one player who's really into it. I'm pretty sure the rest would be totally blind.

Because when talking about dense settings, we have to assume players are going in blind. And if they do go in blind, then they know absolutely nothing about Glorantha, but they do know that China is a place, generally what Han Chinese people look like, they know what the Great Wall of China is etc.

Incredibly superficial details. You can demonstrate these with artwork. Except for the last of course because people don't know what the Great Wall of China is - they just think they do - which is a problem you also get with historical settings. Things players think which are wrong. A lot of things people think they know about historical China is really the Ming and Qin dynasties, the Tang dynasty was different in some profound ways (a lot more buddhist, a lot more central Asian influence, hereditary nobility a lot more significant).

Just having a basic sense of geography of the world is putting you far ahead compared to any fictional setting.

Most fantasy settings need a map. My Tang dynasty game also needed a map. Knowing where China is does not mean the players were familiar with the geography of Central Asia and the Eight century trade routes through the Taklmakan desert and Altai mountains.

Denseness in a setting is also usually related to "how similar to our world is it", because settings generally cheat by having as much real world stuff as they can in there. Set a game on Barsoom. There are no horses or other familiar animals, the year is a different length, the seasons work differently etc. When I see people say "oh, people don't know anything about X historical periods" it's that they aren't particularly versed in specific cultural details. But when someone has no knowledge of a fictional setting? They don't even know that place exists, they have no idea of the geography of it, nothing at all.

I don't know what you mean by 'Cheat' of course secondary worlds often use real world concepts. That's the point of them - it's hardly cheating. You can't really have it both ways. If secondary worlds also function according to real world baselines (earth animals - day length, geography etc*), then this is a shared point and not a point in favour of the real world.

Secondary Worlds tend to simplify too. The politics of Westeros and the way lands and nobility are distributed is a lot simpler than actual War of the Roses Britain (less rich and resonant though - which is a good argument in favour of using the real world).

Someone who has watched several seasons of Game of Thrones has already had a bunch of setting knowledge given to them. Take someone who has never watched the show or read the books and say "create a an appropriate character for Westeros in the first year of the war of five kings" and you'll get a player who has no idea what you're talking about.

But it's not hard to introduce people to. The point is people also need to be onboarded to a historical game - you can't just tell people to use their knowledge history and go at it. Westeros is designed to be easy to grasp and draws on basic knowledge of medieval tropes (including tropes like Droit de Seigneur which are historical misconceptions). So you can't use your knowledge of English geography (which unless you live in the UK is likely too vague to be useful anyway). The politics is simpler, the religion is simplifed to almost non-existence, you have big regional hooks to hang your character on.

In many ways the reason to use real world history is it's much greater depth. Secondary worlds tend to be simplified, with real history there's always another layer to explore.


* although it should probably be said in terms of biology, climate etc, it's less earth baseline and often more just North American/European.

 

[Voros]

Do your players already know about Glorantha? Because when talking about dense settings, we have to assume players are going in blind. And if they do go in blind, then they know absolutely nothing about Glorantha, but they do know that China is a place, generally what Han Chinese people look like, they know what the Great Wall of China is etc. Just having a basic sense of geography of the world is putting you far ahead compared to any fictional setting. Denseness in a setting is also usually related to "how similar to our world is it", because settings generally cheat by having as much real world stuff as they can in there. Set a game on Barsoom. There are no horses or other familiar animals, the year is a different length, the seasons work differently etc. When I see people say "oh, people don't know anything about X historical periods" it's that they aren't particularly versed in specific cultural details. But when someone has no knowledge of a fictional setting? They don't even know that place exists, they have no idea of the geography of it, nothing at all.

Someone who has watched several seasons of Game of Thrones has already had a bunch of setting knowledge given to them. Take someone who has never watched the show or read the books and say "create a an appropriate character for Westeros in the first year of the war of five kings" and you'll get a player who has no idea what you're talking about.

Glorantha is as dense as you make it.

My first encounter with it was the Dragonpass videogame and I dug it but wasn't intimdated by its depth and it felt fresh but not alien.

 

[raniE]

I have one player who's really into it. I'm pretty sure the rest would be totally blind.



Incredibly superficial details. You can demonstrate these with artwork. Except for the last of course because people don't know what the Great Wall of China is - they just think they do - which is a problem you also get with historical settings. Things players think which are wrong. A lot of things people think they know about historical China is really the Ming and Qin dynasties, the Tang dynasty was different in some profound ways (a lot more buddhist, a lot more central Asian influence, hereditary nobility a lot more significant).



Most fantasy settings need a map. My Tang dynasty game also needed a map. Knowing where China is does not mean the players were familiar with the geography of Central Asia and the Eight century trade routes through the Taklmakan desert and Altai mountains.


I don't know what you mean by 'Cheat' of course secondary worlds often use real world concepts. That's the point of them - it's hardly cheating. You can't really have it both ways. If secondary worlds also function according to real world baselines (earth animals - day length, geography etc*), then this is a shared point and not a point in favour of the real world.

Of course it is a point in favor of the real world being more dense as a setting, because the real world, you know, actually exists. I mean you just made my point for me. Settings which are considered less dense than others are drawing on more real world stuff. The less it resembles the real world, the more dense it is considered. We don't know about trees or rocks or the sky being blue because they appear that way in a bunch of fantasy settings, they appear that way in a bunch of fantasy settings because we already know about them from the real world. Again, Barsoom. Not only is the geography different from Earth, the basic physical facts of the setting like day length, year length, seasons and climate, common animals, number of moons in the sky etc are different.

Secondary Worlds tend to simplify too. The politics of Westeros and the way lands and nobility are distributed is a lot simpler than actual War of the Roses Britain (less rich and resonant though - which is a good argument in favour of using the real world).

Again, you're making my point for me.

But it's not hard to introduce people to. The point is people also need to be onboarded to a historical game - you can't just tell people to use their knowledge history and go at it. Westeros is designed to be easy to grasp and draws on basic knowledge of medieval tropes (including tropes like Droit de Seigneur which are historical misconceptions). So you can't use your knowledge of English geography (which unless you live in the UK is likely too vague to be useful anyway). The politics is simpler, the religion is simplifed to almost non-existence, you have big regional hooks to hang your character on.

In many ways the reason to use real world history is it's much greater depth. Secondary worlds tend to be simplified, with real history there's always another layer to explore.


* although it should probably be said in terms of biology, climate etc, it's less earth baseline and often more just North American/European.

Yes, that has been my entire point. Even the most dense secondary worlds have nothing on the real world when it comes to setting density, but also every person (with the exception of really young children or people with several mental disabilities) has an enormous leg up when it comes to playing in the real world over any fictional setting because of all the stuff they already know about the real world.

 

[raniE]

Glorantha is as dense as you make it.

My first encounter with it was the Dragonpass videogame and I dug it but wasn't intimdated by its depth and it felt fresh but not alien.

Yes, but no matter how dense you make it, if you know nothing about it you know nothing about it. Historical China is also as dense as you make it. You can play with a loose version of Glorantha, you can also play with a very loose version of historical China. Whichever way you go, the player is going to have more knowledge about China than about Glorantha going in.

 

[AsenRG]

Well, yes--and no. Here it becomes largely a matter of semantics. If there are 7 different 'schools' of magic and a character is limited to a single school, then in many ways what you have is 7 different classes of magic users, rather than 1. Unless there is a lot about being a 'magic user' that is the same across all 7 or whatever schools.

There is a lot about being a 'magic user' that is the same across all schools: you can use magic. Which might or might not be a big thing, depending on setting. Maybe all the peasants also have a spell or two, though likely nothing big, flashy, or combat-related! Maybe you're not limited to one school (many characters in fiction aren't, either).

Or maybe all peasants would run (for their pitchforks and tar) if they see you using magic...

Setting is what matters here. And some systems allow you to emulate easily a broad range of settings. Others impose upon you the system's preconceptions...or try to, until you chuck them out and replace them with something better!

 

[AsenRG]

So can we just say that the real world benefits from differing levels of cultural osmosis, while the secondary and tertiary settings benefit from not needing to correct popular misunderstandings because they might well be true in the setting?

 

[AsenRG]

I can guarantee you that even someone very uncurious about the world around them will have far more knowledge going in about any setting set in our world than of any secondary world, when picking up either from scratch.

Depends on whether the secondary world resembles what he's familiar with. Some fantasy settings are also known as "ren faires", are almost modern USAish for this very reason, IMO.

 

[TJS]

Yes, that has been my entire point. Even the most dense secondary worlds have nothing on the real world when it comes to setting density, but also every person (with the exception of really young children or people with several mental disabilities) has an enormous leg up when it comes to playing in the real world over any fictional setting because of all the stuff they already know about the real world.

I would say that the average English speaker has a much bigger leg up on Westeros coming in blind than they do Tang Dynasty China, or the Aztec period or 10th century Mali, precisely because the real world knowledge they have (or think they have) of medieval England, means they actually know a lot more about Westeros, then they do about any of the above periods. (And if they're the average gamer, this is even more the case).

(I'd also suggest that the real world knowledge they've pickled up by Osmosis will quite possibly help them understand Westeros more than it would real historical England).

 

[TristramEvans]

What is encyclopedic knowledge though? Wookiepedia, the Star Wars wiki, has a total of 166,310 articles.

I remember how disappointed I was that the whole Wookiepedia wasnt written in Wookie-ese, wth every article just a series of :

"ARRRRRUUURRRR HRRRR OOOOWWWHHHRRRR"

 

[ffilz]

Depends on whether the secondary world resembles what he's familiar with. Some fantasy settings are also known as "ren faires", are almost modern USAish for this very reason, IMO.

Yea, this is a big factor. Truth is most of my fantasy campaigns run as a pretty "D&Dish" setting. My Glorantha is NOT the anthropologist's wet dream the current Glorantha is to some. The RuneQuest 1st edition rules presented a pretty bog standard implied setting with guilds and such. The rune cults weren't very deeply developed in RQ1 and were at that time a high level thing (no lay and initiate membership). When Cults of Prax came along, there was this monologue which imparted some setting, and the cults were expanded on, but in a way that was easy to use (mostly a bundle of "powers" for PCs - a splat book if you will...). Now yea, I've picked up a cultural bit or two here and there.

On the other hand, despite knowing exactly where Japan is on the map, and having read up some, I'm really lost in the Bushido campaigns I'm involved in (playing in one, running another). My Yoon Suin campaign died on the vine despite my setting it in a chunk of Nepal (I found a cool trekking map that when 6 mile hexes were applied onto it was a reasonable number of hexes - with like 5 or 6 villages in each hex... I was really hoping to find a similar map for part of Japan... especially the part where I was running the campaign...).

And honestly, if I ran a historical Europe campaign, the bulk of at least MY connection to the campaign would be that D&Dish setting NOT the real history and culture of medieval Europe.

 

[Séadna]

Our current games are actually a game set in China (early Ming dynasty) that sometimes switches to a modern day China town in the States and a Gloranthan game.

Genuinely just from these games people really didn't show any appreciable difference in getting used to the setting. Yes people do know where China is and what Chinese people look like, but that's a good distance from getting a good feel of what a Ming city was like, how the religious and social hierarchy functioned, actual Chinese geography, etc.
Glorantha most people knew nothing going in, but Glorantha is painted in brighter primary colours, it's gods have neat functions, etc. Overall it is cleaner.

I think the leg up people have for real world settings is of quite a low level and stands against the simplicity of fictional settings. Basically what Asen said above. My experience is that people don't find real world settings easier, with the exception of modern ones. Like if I was to set a game in present day Ireland, yeah my group would find that easier than Glorantha. Classical Mayan civilisation not so much.

 

[AsenRG]

Yea, this is a big factor. Truth is most of my fantasy campaigns run as a pretty "D&Dish" setting. My Glorantha is NOT the anthropologist's wet dream the current Glorantha is to some. The RuneQuest 1st edition rules presented a pretty bog standard implied setting with guilds and such. The rune cults weren't very deeply developed in RQ1 and were at that time a high level thing (no lay and initiate membership). When Cults of Prax came along, there was this monologue which imparted some setting, and the cults were expanded on, but in a way that was easy to use (mostly a bundle of "powers" for PCs - a splat book if you will...). Now yea, I've picked up a cultural bit or two here and there.

On the other hand, despite knowing exactly where Japan is on the map, and having read up some, I'm really lost in the Bushido campaigns I'm involved in (playing in one, running another). My Yoon Suin campaign died on the vine despite my setting it in a chunk of Nepal (I found a cool trekking map that when 6 mile hexes were applied onto it was a reasonable number of hexes - with like 5 or 6 villages in each hex... I was really hoping to find a similar map for part of Japan... especially the part where I was running the campaign...).

And honestly, if I ran a historical Europe campaign, the bulk of at least MY connection to the campaign would be that D&Dish setting NOT the real history and culture of medieval Europe.

Yup, that fits nicely with my observations on local groups.

Our current games are actually a game set in China (early Ming dynasty) that sometimes switches to a modern day China town in the States and a Gloranthan game.

Genuinely just from these games people really didn't show any appreciable difference in getting used to the setting. Yes people do know where China is and what Chinese people look like, but that's a good distance from getting a good feel of what a Ming city was like, how the religious and social hierarchy functioned, actual Chinese geography, etc.
Glorantha most people knew nothing going in, but Glorantha is painted in brighter primary colours, it's gods have neat functions, etc. Overall it is cleaner.

I think the leg up people have for real world settings is of quite a low level and stands against the simplicity of fictional settings. Basically what Asen said above. My experience is that people don't find real world settings easier, with the exception of modern ones. Like if I was to set a game in present day Ireland, yeah my group would find that easier than Glorantha. Classical Mayan civilisation not so much.

Well, you group are presumably Irish. I suspect your Mythic Eire would also be easier than Glorantha and significantly so! It would also be easier than Ming Dynasty, though you might have more misconceptions to deal with.

OTOH, my group would probably have a much easier time in Ming than in Glorantha (especially one of the players who would assume the setting is on a planet, instead of flat, and physics works despite any agreements between the gods). But then it would not be their first rodeo in wuxia. Nor the second, nor the third...they have me as a GM. About half their gaming time has been spent "to the East of Moscow".

 

[raniE]

I would say that the average English speaker has a much bigger leg up on Westeros coming in blind than they do Tang Dynasty China, or the Aztec period or 10th century Mali, precisely because the real world knowledge they have (or think they have) of medieval England, means they actually know a lot more about Westeros, then they do about any of the above periods. (And if they're the average gamer, this is even more the case).

(I'd also suggest that the real world knowledge they've pickled up by Osmosis will quite possibly help them understand Westeros more than it would real historical England).

The only reason doing something like "Tang dynasty China" is even possible is because of the vast knowledge of the world the players already have. Westeros has a bunch of material written about it, but it's still far less dense as a setting than something like "eh, it's ancient China, don't worry too much about it" is. No one can play in the equivalent of Tang dynasty China of Westeros both because the setting isn't deep enough to allow any such deep historical dives, but also because the onboarding process would be immensely more difficult for that than for the real world equivalent.

 

[AsenRG]

The only reason doing something like "Tang dynasty China" is even possible is because of the vast knowledge of the world the players already have. Westeros has a bunch of material written about it, but it's still far less dense as a setting than something like "eh, it's ancient China, don't worry too much about it" is. No one can play in the equivalent of Tang dynasty China of Westeros both because the setting isn't deep enough to allow any such deep historical dives, but also because the onboarding process would be immensely more difficult for that than for the real world equivalent.

No, the onboarding process would be the same: go read.
But you're right that nobody can play in the China of Westeros...if the group wants to use only pre-prepared material, that is - but "making it up as you see fit to fill in the blanks" is a time-honoured tradition in both our hobby and conspiracy theories!

 

[raniE]

Well, that's your question. It's not mine, so perhaps we are merely talking at cross-purposes.

I mean, I started the thread, so I know what the thread was about when it started at least But imagine if instead of the Cleric the original D&D had three classes: Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Priest, where Priest is mechanically exactly the same as the Magic-User but has a different spell list. Does that seem like a reasonable class division to you? Because it doesn't to me.

I would agree about Middle Earth, on the whole. There clearly is some other magic going on in the setting--creation of magic swords, the magic door to Moria, etc. But it's a low-magic setting (in RPG terms) without explicit religions. So it doesn't show priests or their equivalents at all and I certainly wouldn't include a cleric class in a Middle Earth game. Nor, if I was going to hew close to Tolkien, would I allow magic-user characters in such a game. So though it did influence OD&D in some respects, I don't think it had a lot of impact on the game's view of magic.

I think it did, at least somewhat. Because while the setting is not particularly high magic, the stories are. And when you're reading a story, that's what matters. Gandalf became an archetypal Wizard, even though he's one of only five total in the setting. Mixed parties of dwarves, elves, halflings and men became a standard, even though that would be incredibly uncommon in the setting. Very few fantasy games and developed fantasy worlds emulate Middle Earth. A lot of them emulate The Lord of the Rings.

As to the broader claim that 'religious figures have no supernatural powers in most of the source material' I'm not convinced one way or another. It would be interesting to look at a much broader range of examples. As I said above, I don't think it is particularly relevant if a source includes priests etc. that do not have such supernatural powers, since the class does not need to represent all priests, only those that do have such powers.

The Elric stories, at least as much as I remember them, do support your contention that magical powers and the supernatural powers of clergy are the same. Jagreen Lern, the theocrat of Pan Tang, is clearly a priest who has supernatural abilities, but these don't seem fundamentally different than those of Elric, or of the magician Theleb K'aarna, as far as I can recall. The fundamental mechanism of magic tends to be summoning extraplanar creatures.

As to the examples I've been using so far, they occurred to me simply because they are things I have been reading in the last couple of months. I've not read either Leiber or Howard (for example) in years, so I really don't remember how they deal with this issue. It would be interesting to find out.

I don't recall any occasion in the Conan stories where any magic wielded by priests is different from that of sorcery. The only real such I can recall is the ancient sorcerer Xaltotun who is brought back to life using the magic of the Heart of Ahriman, a magical artifact, and then reduced to dust again by the Heart of Ahriman. The resurrection is done by a wannabe sorcerer, the banishment by a priest, but both times it is the magic item doing the lifting, and I seem to recall it is also in ways the source of Xaltotun's power. I've read one of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories in total, so I'll have to do a deep dive there and see what I can find.

Very clear. I am uncertain as to whether "the distinction doesn't show up in most fantasy." Personally, I find it easier to ignore classes I don't like or want rather than adding in ones that aren't in the rules, but that's a matter of individual approach, I suppose.

It's very difficult to ignore a class when all the healing and restoration abilities were given to it.

 

[Voros]

I mean, I started the thread, so I know what the thread was about when it started at least But imagine if instead of the Cleric the original D&D had three classes: Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Priest, where Priest is mechanically exactly the same as the Magic-User but has a different spell list. Does that seem like a reasonable class division to you? Because it doesn't to me.

...
It's very difficult to ignore a class when all the healing and restoration abilities were given to it.

Let's imagine original D&D had a better name than 'magic-user' instead.

Kind of odd as Gygax was generally good at flavour, no idea why some people insist on sticking with the tofu-like labels. Always preferred 2e's move to Wizard/Mage. Fighter isn't great either (Warrior seems the obvious choice) but not quite as bland.

In terms of healing and restoration magic, I can't recall any magical healing or restoration magic in S&S literature (or in LotR? could be wrong here, anyone feel free to give examples).

Films maybe, hack screenwriters seemed more likely to use magic as an escape hatch to bring back a beloved character.

If I'm remembering right in S&S literature most attempts at 'resurrection' were superdoomed and led to zombie-like consequences.

 

[AsenRG]

Let's imagine original D&D had a better name than 'magic-user' instead.

Kind of odd as Gygax was generally good at flavour, no idea why some people insist on sticking with the tofu-like labels. Always preferred 2e's move to Wizard/Mage. Fighter isn't great either (Warrior seems the obvious choice) but not quite as bland.

In terms of healing and restoration magic, I can't recall any magical healing or restoration magic in S&S literature (or in LotR? could be wrong here, anyone feel free to give examples).

Films maybe, hack screenwriters seemed more likely to use magic as an escape hatch to bring back a beloved character.

If I'm remembering right in S&S literature most attempts at 'resurrection' were superdoomed and led to zombie-like consequences.

Yes. So much this!

I mean, I started the thread, so I know what the thread was about when it started at least But imagine if instead of the Cleric the original D&D had three classes: Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Priest, where Priest is mechanically exactly the same as the Magic-User but has a different spell list. Does that seem like a reasonable class division to you? Because it doesn't to me.

So let's call the classes "Warrior, Arcanist/Vampire Hunter", with the Vampire Hunter being a religious sub-class of the Arcanist. Does it sound like a reasonable class division to you? I don't know, but it sure would have worked better for me.
And while we are at it, we could have added a sub-class to the Warrior as well!

 

[raniE]

Let's imagine original D&D had a better name than 'magic-user' instead.

Kind of odd as Gygax was generally good at flavour, no idea why some people insist on sticking with the tofu-like labels. Always preferred 2e's move to Wizard/Mage. Fighter isn't great either (Warrior seems the obvious choice) but not quite as bland.

In terms of healing and restoration magic, I can't recall any magical healing or restoration magic in S&S literature (or in LotR? could be wrong here, anyone feel free to give examples).

Films maybe, hack screenwriters seemed more likely to use magic as an escape hatch to bring back a beloved character.

If I'm remembering right in S&S literature most attempts at 'resurrection' were superdoomed and led to zombie-like consequences.

The whole point with Fighting-Man and Magic-User is that they are bland and broad. A Magic-User is someone who uses magic, the archetype encompasses wizards, witches, necromancers, sorcerers, priests with magic powers etc. A Fighting-Man can be a barbarian warrior, a knight, a sellsword, a mercenary, a samurai, a janissary etc. Once you start going with more detail you just start introducing new classes. Now you need a Knight class and a Samurai class and a Barbarian class etc etc.

Healing magic in Lord of the Rings is generally more subtle, like a lot, but not all, of the magic. Orcs had healing draughts that Merry and Pippin got, Aragorn could use Athelas to heal Faramir, Merry and Pippin when others couldn't and could at least slow the progress of the Morgul blade wound Frodo got until proper care could be found in Rivendell from Elrond (who was able to remove the blade shard and heal Frodo's wound). As I mentioned above Xaltotun was successfully raised from the dead, then turned back to dust, with the Heart of Ahriman. Most of the time in sword and sorcery though, the heroes are using swords and the bad guys are the ones using sorcery. Also, most of the time the heroes are not heavily wounded and then you get a big jump until the next adventure.

Other examples include the Deryni, from the Deryni Chronicles by Katherine Kurtz, although healing magic was rare among them, and the magic of the Earthsea series, where healing, both through herbs and more magical means, are taught at the Roke academy. So yes, healing magic appears in fantasy fiction that came out before D&D, and usually not connected to religious authorities.

 

[Voros]

The whole point with Fighting-Man and Magic-User is that they are bland and broad. A Magic-User is someone who uses magic, the archetype encompasses wizards, witches, necromancers, sorcerers, priests with magic powers etc. A Fighting-Man can be a barbarian warrior, a knight, a sellsword, a mercenary, a samurai, a janissary etc. Once you start going with more detail you just start introducing new classes. Now you need a Knight class and a Samurai class and a Barbarian class etc etc.

Healing magic in Lord of the Rings is generally more subtle, like a lot, but not all, of the magic. Orcs had healing draughts that Merry and Pippin got, Aragorn could use Athelas to heal Faramir, Merry and Pippin when others couldn't and could at least slow the progress of the Morgul blade wound Frodo got until proper care could be found in Rivendell from Elrond (who was able to remove the blade shard and heal Frodo's wound). As I mentioned above Xaltotun was successfully raised from the dead, then turned back to dust, with the Heart of Ahriman. Most of the time in sword and sorcery though, the heroes are using swords and the bad guys are the ones using sorcery. Also, most of the time the heroes are not heavily wounded and then you get a big jump until the next adventure.

Other examples include the Deryni, from the Deryni Chronicles by Katherine Kurtz, although healing magic was rare among them, and the magic of the Earthsea series, where healing, both through herbs and more magical means, are taught at the Roke academy. So yes, healing magic appears in fantasy fiction that came out before D&D, and usually not connected to religious authorities.

Yeah but Warrior or Spellcaster/Mage are equally broad but don't sound like they were named by an android pretending to be a hu-man.

I'll take your word on Earthsea, just read the first book and I don't recall that although I'm not sure I'd buy that herbs and such to heal really counts as magical healing per se.

Seems pretty clear that the Cleric's healing by laying on of hands is taken directly from the Gospels, medieval romances, stories of Saints and folk tales, not genre fantasy fiction.

 

[raniE]

Yeah but Warrior or Spellcaster/Mage are equally broad but don't sound like they were named by an android pretending to be a hu-man.

I'll take your word on Earthsea, just read the first book and I don't recall that although I'm not sure I'd buy that herbs and such to heal really counts as magical healing per se.

Seems pretty clear that the Cleric's healing by laying on of hands is taken directly from the Gospels, stories of Saints and folk tales, not genre fantasy fiction.

Quote from A Wizard of Earthsea: "He set to bathing the little boy with cold rainwater that they brought new-fallen from out of doors, and he began to say one of the spells of feverstay." Like I said, both herbs and magic. With Aragorn it's unclear if it's just the herbs or if it's the fact that he as a king has the hands of a healer.

When it comes to the name, no mage isn't as broad, because then you are sort of excluding a priest or shaman or the like. Warrior maybe, but I find it on the same level as Fighter.

 

[zanshin]

Just to throw something else into the mix, Chivalry & Sorcery 1e/2e made the divine class distinctively different. If you had sufficient Piety (one of many, many attributes) then you could call for miracles. Wizards were separately split by school and had to do a lot of book learning and enchanting of materials to cast their spells.

 

[Voros]

Just to throw something else into the mix, Chivalry & Sorcery 1e/2e made the divine class distinctively different. If you had sufficient Piety (one of many, many attributes) then you could call for miracles. Wizards were separately split by school and had to do a lot of book learning and enchanting of materials to cast their spells.

Maelstrom had an interesting take as well where a Priest could influence crowds by preaching and had a chance to call on God for miracles.

As usual, D&D just took a shortcut and turned the power level up to 11 I'd say.

 

[TJS]

I seemed to remember that WOTC considered changing Fighter to Warrior in 3E like they did Magic User to Wizard, but they bottled it.

Really there's no excuse for Fighter when you have a word as cool as Warrior sitting right there not really being used.

If Mage isn't generally enough True 20 used Adept for all spellcasters. They had three classes: (I think they were Warrior, Rogue and Adept)