Fully Formed Religions

[Dudel]

Well you haven't been living in her town. It seems to me that Twirdy is all ready to worship her.

Okay on topic again!

I've seen a few religions leaders about but it seems that even newspawns are anti-religion. I want to see more religion and open governments but all I see, for the most part, is dicatorships and like others have said those few who cling but most aren't interested.

Even towns like Doryiskom are run in a form of dictatorship where the people just pick a new person to push them around. Thats not an open goverment. I want a council or something, goverment or religous, but EVERONE seems way anti EVERYTHING group related. People want absolute power not coroperation.

So far I've seen a few with odd belifs that don't even want religion but others aren't even curious they write them off as crazy or stupid. I've seen some nice notes like you others have about great religious ideas but no one is willing to listen or belive.

[Dust Puppy]

Even towns like Doryiskom are run in a form of dictatorship where the people just pick a new person to push them around.

Oh teh noes! Random people suggest a law! Everyone votes on it! The councillors don´t have any more say than others! IT IS OBVIOUSLY A TYRANNY!

[tiddy ogg]

There's been another thread about religions, but apart from the OOC prejudices of some players, as mentioneed above, religions depend on some things being unknown or mysterious. The only things that are mysterious in the game are the limitations of the game mechanics, and, though these would make ideal RP opportunities, people don't seem to do so. And those who do so are ignored.
Why were resource slots introduced way back? Why couldn't chars all of a sudden work the fields?
Where did new animals suddenly spring from? (We managed to get about two messages out of that one in Kwor.)
And what should be the biggest mystery to chars: why, all of a sudden they can't do anything due to the lag, should to chars be a huge supernatural effect.
But do chars ever suggest such things?

[Marian]

I'm surprised the idea of reincarnation has never caught on...people die, get buried, and then a newspawn pops up out of nowhere? Come on that theory practically writes itself.

I want a council or something, goverment or religous, but EVERONE seems way anti EVERYTHING group related. People want absolute power not coroperation.

It sucks but this is mostly because cooperation just doesn't work,if something important needs to be done you can't just sit there and wait weeks for everyone to wake up and vote. NExt time you get a key to something important try handing out copies to five people - at least three of them will be in a coma, dead of a heart attack, or turn out to secretly be thieves who were waiting for their chance within the month.

[chase02]

I loved this post. But this part was a total gem:

And what should be the biggest mystery to chars: why, all of a sudden they can't do anything due to the lag, should to chars be a huge supernatural effect.
But do chars ever suggest such things?

no, maybe because "they can't do anything due to the lag"? lololol. that made my day, thanks

[SekoETC]

Oh, it would be kinda cool if someone came up with the idea that every time someone dies, that causes someone else to spawn in another place. So people might start killing sleepers in order to give them a chance to spawn in another place as better people.

[joo]

One of my characters has, incidentally, remarked on such an occurence. It didn't cause much discussion, though.

[Money]

My religion is spreading slowly but I feel that most people in my town accept it.

[Mr. Black]

Hmm, Joo. So has mine.......and there were not one (mine), but two people in my town who suggested the idea! Hmm....I'm watching you carefully from now on.

[hammereagle42]

I have a char that was introduced to the Donii religion by Breanne Thomas, and it seems to be pretty well developed. A bit mystic for my taste, but at least thought through with some devout followers.

[Turtle_jay]

I created a character a few years ago named Black Minion. His religion was about as evil as you could get. Encouraged lies, theft, murder, and all that wrong stuff. Every town he went to, he was thrown in prison. His notes were not received well. (nor were they written well!)

Eventually he was killed. But I was shocked when one of my other characters found someone passing out one of his notes years later. I wouldn't dare say that religion was a success, but I don't believe it has fully died in Cantr.

[nateflory]

religions depend on some things being unknown or mysterious. The only things that are mysterious in the game are the limitations of the game mechanics, and, though these would make ideal RP opportunities, people don't seem to do so....
But do chars ever suggest such things?

This is one reason I think most in-game religions do not really take hold.
Plus, beyond explaining the mysterious, most organized religions are not just simply a set of beliefs. Religion tends to offer rewards or punishmentas part of the 'theology', and to a limited extent, have some level of control over it's members.
Faith in a set of beliefs, regardless of how strange, is one thing.
Organizing a religion to practice those faiths needs to offer some incentive for the adherents to follow it beyond simply lip-service or reading the notes. This could range from physical benefits like owning tools or food while non-believers are "poorer", or more esoteric benefits like a blessed afterlife.

However, since the CRB specifically tends to discourage "reincarnation", and most people do form a pre-spawn idea of their character's personality, Religions are difficult to spread unless they offer something of benefit to the new members, or a hardship to non-members.

Otherwise, it's merely a random set of ideas, which is hard to spread in-game due to being purely RP constructs.
(not to sound anti-religion! I'm a minister in RL)

[Marian]

I have pretty strong religious beliefs in RL, but I've never really been able to muster them up for any of my chars in game (with the exception of one crazy guy who was having visions and delusions of grandeur because he was...well, crazy).

The closest I've ever gotten is a char from my old account who respected and half-worshipped tortoises and hawks, for being symbols of strength and "speed" (being active) and for the shell and eggs being so important to the little community she was in.

I've seen plenty of other notes about complicated religions with gods and spirits and detailed rules and all that, but never been interested in them as they seemed to have nothing to do with anything in Cantr "reality"....I think for a successful in game religion, simplicity is the key. Like its been said, most people have a general idea of their chars when they start playing and aren't going to give up everything for someone else's idea... if you want actual followers, the core of the religion needs to be simple that people can incorporate into their RP without having to change their chars to drastically. (the same way a town with just the basic 'four laws' seems to have an easier time keeping newspawns around...)

[chadpants]

I like the idea of in-game religions, but the biggest obstacle to seeing them manifest and grow is a lack of true impetus. Religions come to fruition based on need. It's more than just a need to explain the unknown or the mysterious or unexplainable. People don't simply believe in a god or diety then say "well, that answers that", there's always a purpose the religion serves. People use religion to provide a moral compass based on the expectations of the diety or god in question, the rules imposed by the supreme being.

People come to believe in a religion either because they were raised that way and accept it without question, or they come to find religion because it helped them overcome adversity. So in order for religion to take, in the Cantrian realm, there has to be a compelling reason for it. It's not enough to have it give answers to esoteric questions. For example, in ancient civilizations, when the crops would dry up the peoples believed there was interference from angry gods. Thus they would take actions to appease the gods in order to appease their anger and have more productive agriculture. They would, for example, sacrifice animals or virgins. If the situation did not improve, the gods were not pleased with the sacrifice. If it did improve, the sacrifice obviously worked.

There are just too few circumstances in game play that are affected by game mechanics that have an adverse affect on character livelihood. Resources are inexhaustible. Without such affects, religion will have diffulty taking a foothold in Cantr.

That's my 2000 cents.

[SekoETC]

That's well written, chad. If most characters are spawned with built-in sense of wrong and right, why would they need a god or town elders to show them the right way? If characters have everything well in life and in their control, why would they need god's help?

As I've mentioned before, one of my characters (Maline) got very close to the Keeper after being captured by the Barons and later escaping from them. She was allowed to hold on to her crowbar and walk freely inside the location since the Barons had vehicles and could've easily killed her if she tried to run. She found an abandoned lockpicking project on one of the vehicles, and worked to finish it. It was successful but I was offline when the project finished. Before Maline could wake up, one of the Barons came out and noticed the lock was gone. He asked if she was trying to escape and she said "no, I guess not" or something like that and went back inside. The Baron was working on building a new lock but he had to visit the building for something, most likely intending to pop in just briefly. However, before he could go back to the vehicle, the game crashed. I think it was down for a couple of days. When it came back up, Maline was the first to wake up. She went outside and found the vehicle still unlocked so she stole it and escaped. The Barons woke up soon after but took a while to figure out which road she had taken and never caught up with her. Overall it seemed like a miracle. Cases like that are likely to make a character start believing in a higher power. Another character of mine has also met someone who became a spokesperson for a religion after escaping from captivity.

I also had a character named Marceidus who believed that she was actually from another planet and her people would come rescue her eventually. Faith in aliens is one sort of a religion even though it's not established. One time there was a server crash (again) and afterwards she interpreted it as an enemy alien race hitting everyone with a mass tranquilizer. Bugs and crashes can easily create material that could be used as proof of supernatural forces, but most people choose to ignore them or just say that they were unusually sleepy.