Keith&Co.
Contributor
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2006
- Messages
- 22,444
- Location
- Far Western Mass
- Gender
- Here.
- Basic Beliefs
- I'm here...
My Thumper of a cousin has found that his kids are playing Pathfinder. He's all for it!
He kinda remembers the Madd About D&D scares of the 70's. Where the players' characters were real to them, real enough to motivate suicide and stuff.
He figures that if his daughter's got a cleric that is 'real' to her, then she's got a role model who accepts the value of worship. Lavender Sonja is devout, which will lead his daughter to be devout.
That's... Um. I don't want to take anything away from Doug, and I certainly don't want him taking a game away from his kids, but, damn, that's a really whackable logic chain, there...
I've never played Pathfinder, but I did have a Druid in AD&D. Garthillian worshiped Ki because things happened when he did. He got direct divine intercession in his daily life. Or he didn't, but if he didn't, he got a memo stating why this particular prayer wasn't being answered. It was or was not to Ki's taste that X happen, or whatever.
He could do things that he would not have been able to accomplish without Ki's support. And the four times he died, he went to the promised afterlife for as long as it took the party to resurrect him again.
He also saw that other gods existed, both within Ki's pantheon and without. Because druids and clerics got THEIR prayers answered, accomplishing things dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc. could not normally accomplish.
Magic and gods were real in Garthillian's life, and worship made sense.
I grew up taught to worship. I believed because I was told to. When I started questioning some of the things they told me, I got a variety of useless responses. As I reverse engineered my belief, I found few things that actually required a deity to explain.
In Garthillian's world, if a spell did not work, the clerics checked the will of their gods, usually getting a direct response. The wizards looked for a typo (while the Barbarian teased the wizard by asking, "So that eye of newt... Was the newt a virgin?").
In my world, if prayers went unanswered, the Church was quick to explain how it was my fault that God did sweet Fanny Addams about the situation. Or how god's divine purpose was revealed through his complete and utter inaction. Or how it was really better for everyone, in the end, if God stuck his thumb up his ass and just watched. Or they promised that ONCE WE DIED, where no one else could see, there would be justice and answers and all would be made right.
I am fairly confident that Little Dougette will not be confused about the difference between game-reality and her-reality. I mean, in ten years of playing, my character never once stubbed a toe on a piece of furniture that their sister moved for no really good reason...
But I don't think that the lessons she'll learn from Lavender Sonja are exactly the ones Doug thinks she'll learn...
He kinda remembers the Madd About D&D scares of the 70's. Where the players' characters were real to them, real enough to motivate suicide and stuff.
He figures that if his daughter's got a cleric that is 'real' to her, then she's got a role model who accepts the value of worship. Lavender Sonja is devout, which will lead his daughter to be devout.
That's... Um. I don't want to take anything away from Doug, and I certainly don't want him taking a game away from his kids, but, damn, that's a really whackable logic chain, there...
I've never played Pathfinder, but I did have a Druid in AD&D. Garthillian worshiped Ki because things happened when he did. He got direct divine intercession in his daily life. Or he didn't, but if he didn't, he got a memo stating why this particular prayer wasn't being answered. It was or was not to Ki's taste that X happen, or whatever.
He could do things that he would not have been able to accomplish without Ki's support. And the four times he died, he went to the promised afterlife for as long as it took the party to resurrect him again.
He also saw that other gods existed, both within Ki's pantheon and without. Because druids and clerics got THEIR prayers answered, accomplishing things dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins, etc. could not normally accomplish.
Magic and gods were real in Garthillian's life, and worship made sense.
I grew up taught to worship. I believed because I was told to. When I started questioning some of the things they told me, I got a variety of useless responses. As I reverse engineered my belief, I found few things that actually required a deity to explain.
In Garthillian's world, if a spell did not work, the clerics checked the will of their gods, usually getting a direct response. The wizards looked for a typo (while the Barbarian teased the wizard by asking, "So that eye of newt... Was the newt a virgin?").
In my world, if prayers went unanswered, the Church was quick to explain how it was my fault that God did sweet Fanny Addams about the situation. Or how god's divine purpose was revealed through his complete and utter inaction. Or how it was really better for everyone, in the end, if God stuck his thumb up his ass and just watched. Or they promised that ONCE WE DIED, where no one else could see, there would be justice and answers and all would be made right.
I am fairly confident that Little Dougette will not be confused about the difference between game-reality and her-reality. I mean, in ten years of playing, my character never once stubbed a toe on a piece of furniture that their sister moved for no really good reason...
But I don't think that the lessons she'll learn from Lavender Sonja are exactly the ones Doug thinks she'll learn...
