Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

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Drayn
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#21 Post by Drayn » Mon Oct 10, 2011 6:05 pm

Elvandar Law mentions public floggings in the town square, but anyhoo...


Firstly, we shouldn't really be resisting natural social developments IC, just go with them. I know the game is thematically set in the medieval era, but let's not forget there are very important factors to consider. Firstly Geas can't really be in a dark ages, something historically in our world which refers to a period when people were ignorant of important scientific principles and their lives, cultures and development were heavily influenced by religion and superstition.

In Geas, characters KNOW there are gods, and they've SEEN magic, so they're at a different social calibration than our history, a direct comparison is not really applicable. If you want to see a more violent and unreasonable you'll need to explain to the characters why they should be.

For example, thieves become thieves because of desperate circumstances (usually anyway), either that or social/peer pressure or kleptomania or similar compulsions. In geas, it's actually quite difficult to be poor. A few IC hours of intense herb searching will garner enough herbs to put you in rent for a week and decent meals. That with the money from scalping/singing/juggling means there are plenty of easier and safer ways to make a decent income.

On to capital punishment...burning folks at the stake, hanging them etc. etc.
In theory this should be more prevalent as people are aware of their apparent immortality so a death sentence wouldn't be held in the same regard as in our world...but on the other side, people no longer fear death. Fear makes people act in uncivilised ways and the greatest fear, that of mortality, is gone. We also know what happens in the afterlife, we hang about until ressed, there is no fear of an eternal punishment that makes us seek out those we believe will bring about the fires of hell or the apocalypse.

So in summary, I see the roleplay IC as being appropriate for the social factors. Any forced change would be synthetic and would quickly fade out.

As I'm typing this I'm thinking it would be really cool to have afterlives that we had to progress through upon death, a la purgatory. Something that keeps you away from the real world for a while so that there is more to a death.

The state of your karma determines up or down, the earthly power of the gods would determine the environment you experience, low EP much more unpleasant/difficult, high EP more pleasant/easy/quicker.

This would be a great way to ramp up death as an important social factor and not just death but the manner of it. If you're given proper funerary rites, you get an easier time of it on the other side. Your corpse desecrated and hideous unspeakable rites of terror performed? Your afterlife experience sucketh greatly!

/tangent

So yes, direct comparison of societies with distinctly different social factors is a bit wonky.

fernao
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#22 Post by fernao » Tue Oct 11, 2011 2:25 am

I wouldn't tie earthly power into anything more than it already is. A few couple of active priests, of either religion, could turn too much of the thing for too many other people that can hardly influence anyhting, simply because they have not chosen to join a priestly guild.
E.g. when the Taniel clergy and the crusaders were barely active, that meant that the few active pilgrims had no chance in hell to counter the active sathonites at the time in competition to the earthly power. That would have meant that any death on the side of any other Taniel follower, like rangers or others, would have "suffered" from the temporary leave of absence of a number of Tanielite priests. On the other hand, the few active Asrals could not hope for a chance to improve things for the followers of their god. And in "normal" times, when the place is crowded with Crusaders and Tanielites, this means that followers of all other religions can basically pack up and wait for the Tanielites and Crusaders to lose interest in playing, so their priests can get a chance to improve things....
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Eleassa
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#23 Post by Eleassa » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:46 am

In one of the first muds I played, you couldn't be resurrected immediately, you had to wait in what were known as the 'mists' for a while. The amount of time was random, but generally, the more deaths you had, the longer you had to wait, up to a maximum that I can't remember off the top of my head. There was also an amnesia affect you were supposed to RP. You wouldn't remember recent events that happened, but IIRC the moment of death would haunt you. So you could remember that your head was chopped off, and the general area it happened in, but not who did it. Oh, you also couldn't communicate with 'living' characters, even if your character had the telepathy-type skill.

It definitely made death a bit more feared IG there.
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Drayn
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#24 Post by Drayn » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:32 am

@fernao: Just some general ideas. Also doesn't people sacrificing have an effect on the EP? If not it probably should, it would encourage priests to attract more followers though that should already be a given.

Anyhoo, I have inadvertantly branched this convo off into an afterlife discussion. Could a mod maybe make a split thread? That way the original discussion can continue and those interested in pursuing the afterlife idea can do so.

fernao
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#25 Post by fernao » Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:03 am

Sacrifices, regardless of being npc or pc, influence EP. Same as ground blessing for Tanielites and Sacrifices for Sathos. However, us Asrals sacrifice after the kill. Means, we kill out target and then do our sacrifice ritual which removes the corpse and sends the soul to Asral and grants us favour and prestige.
Shifting EP also has a bit to do with active ground alignment changes I presume. Local law forbids us Asrals to change ground alignment in the Elvandar region. Sathos won't care, but at least currently, we Asrals care. And unlike Tanielites and Sathos Asrals don't gain favour from changing the ground alignment. At least not in a way I ever noticed.
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Orodreth
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#26 Post by Orodreth » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:49 pm

I'm still a bit mystified how the Asrals raise their EP at all. Not that I want to know, as that's IC information, just stating a fact of my own ignorance.

Drayn
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#27 Post by Drayn » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:51 pm

@fernao: No I was talking about layman sacrifices like the tanielite candles or the evren blood bowl. I think ground blessing is our (tanielites) primary EP shifter, but I was wondering if none clergy had any power to effect the EP.

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Sairina
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Re: Impact of Modern Morality and Philosophy IG

#28 Post by Sairina » Thu Oct 13, 2011 3:55 am

@fernao: No I was talking about layman sacrifices like the tanielite candles or the evren blood bowl. I think ground blessing is our (tanielites) primary EP shifter, but I was wondering if none clergy had any power to effect the EP.
I like that idea, and I agree that if it doesn't already have an influence, then it should have.

But we're drifting off the topic again in another direction :lol:

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