Do you have religion in your game?

[Julien Brightside]

Many games feature temples that players ressurect when dying. Usually they are run by a priest and priests are usually the front spokesman about their religion.

What are your thoughts about these temples?

Do you have religion in your game?

What roles do the gods play in your game?

Are your characters in the game religious?

Thoughts about religion in games in general?

 

[Alexander Amnell]

   Everything a man puts faith in can be a religion, it's human nature that it exists and until every human has died a god will exist that is worshiped in some way; whether it be traditional, nihilistic or faith in oneself we all have our gods and it would appear strange to me to intentionally remove faith as a driving factor in peoples lives within a game world. As for the traditional higher beings being worshiped by multitudes I have it but I barely skim the surface of it in game, mostly the idea is that the legend of powerful sorcerers over thousands of years have been distorted to the point where people worship them, and a few living sorcerers who seek enough power to convince others of their godhood and become a living god (one of which already exists in game.)

   There is also a wolf that appears a couple of times in very out of the way optional quests that provides insights into certain aspects of what's happening in the world that are presented as omniscience; extremely arrogant and probably downright offensive to some people I know, but the parallels between the idea of a creator who distances himself from his creations who seek him and creating a game full of characters that after enough depth almost seem real in some way is not lost on me, and I find it a fascinating dynamic to postulate.

 

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

I have religions in my games... well, in one of my games, but there are lots of different types, each of whom follow different gods. I don't tend to use religion as a conflict as such, at least I don't think Ii do. I think religion is games is fine, but then, I'm not a particularly religious person myself, so long as you don't try and force your religion on others then it's fine. I wouldn't play a game that had our own earth religions in it because there's always a sort of preachy element I don't enjoy, but made up religions are fine, or stories set against the backdrop of ancient greece or egypt are fine.

I have a feeling none of what I said made any sense. I'm gonna blame my headache!

 

[Warpmind]

There's always an element of Religion in my games - the question is really more of whether it's a background thing that might be looked further into by the lore-loving segment of the player base, or if it's a domineering feature of the game's society or plot.

One game I'm working on, for example, has the main character being the reincarnation of a usurped god, out to reclaim his seat - would be kind of difficult to make such a game without religion, ya know.

Another question is what flavor of religion is implemented - I've worked with monotheistic, polytheistic and pantheistic religions in the past, both tabletop (as GM) and in RPG Maker projects (that, granted, I never got around to finishing for one reason or another.) I'm a bit wary of using real-world religions in games aimed at a wider audience (tabletop RPGs as GM is a little easier, since I pretty much know my players' attitudes there), as well as obvious pastiches of real-world religions. Especially highly theistic ones. Mixing and matching into an (un)holy mishmash of, say, Christian, Daoist, Druidic and Buddhist ideas, ideals and philosophies, however, quickly reaches the point where it's no longer plagiarism, but research.

Religion in games is a very, very tricky beast, because it often needs to be a small hint of its existence to make the world seem realistic, but it's very easy to Get It Wrong and slip in some unwitting subconscious, offensive bias, especially if you don't have someone to bounce ideas off in the process. (Just having a proofreader can be enough.)

 

[Milennin]

I have something closer to a mythology in my game, rather than a religion. It doesn't get a huge role in the main story, it's mostly there to flesh out the world some more.

 

[Haydeos]

I've got a church where a priestess can heal you. It's intentionally vague, but christian-ish. (The church of the holy shtick)

As usual, whatever fits the story best!

 

[CrazyCrab]

There is religion in my game, but it's pretty much up to the player to decide how much they want of it.

Normally you start with no religion - memory loss, you remember little to nothing when it comes to the past. Some outsiders are religious, like the ''Children of the Thorn'' (a minor faction that worships nature), but your starting village is just, well, ''empty'' I suppose. Then if you choose to you can research Priesthood and that's where you choose your religion - one of the Old Gods or, well, you if you think that your people will be better off offering all these things to you.

Then it's really up to you how many churches / shrines you build, with more naturally meaning that religion will be more important. What the priests will actually do will depend on the Old God you've chosen, with no dedicated priests when you've chosen yourself, as shrines are more like statues at that point.

Then some outsiders / other archmages that are highly / not at all religious will regard you differently, depending on that God you're allied with.

In the end it's more or less a sandbox Strategy / RPG, so it's really up to the player most of the time

 

[Tokumei No]

Religion and life before and after death in relation with God are two of the various themes in my game, but religion itself does not role as a respawn expedient.

 

[captainproton]

My game has a fairly vague religion. There's the Divine, sometimes called the Almighty, who created the universe and everything in it, and then installed the gods as a sort of middle management. I also have the higher Fae (represented by the RTP Spiritual characters) as neutral beings on par with angels. Then, of course, there's the Abyss, the evil force/being opposing the Divine.

 

[Caitlin]

It depends on the story, but yes, I do have a set of "Gods and Goddess" that appear in many of my stories.  Sometimes, they appear and other times not, but since I work in a universe and the realm of the Gods is a separate universe that connects to all the universes, that's why I can have them in many other universes.  I have a favorite among my Gods and Goddess characters, so I am looking forward to having a project where I can introduce her to the world. o.o  I often have real life troubles for my characters like abuse, alcoholism, even drug abuse and so my religion often serves in the community, and the gods a higher example to whatever they are worshipped for.  Although, I'll be honest, they have been known to change from time to time as new God rise up in the place. I was open and listen, learn about other religions to form my own religion without knowing it.  I think it effected my way of thinking.

 

[Dragnfly]

I've got one in mine too. Pretty central to the plot also. For mine religion is directly tied to a person's body. Although each character's level of devotion varies, going too long without prayer will make anyone sick and the world's population is outright biologically incapable of denouncing their god or worshipping another person or thing as a god. There's more to it than that but there's the summary. Mind you faith and religion aren't uniquely inclusive to one another. Someone who denounces faith is still showing faith. They're just being all confused. And a game where nobody truly has faith would be absolutely awful.

Regarding revival, I'm not going into the nit-picky story mechanic details and exceptions but while there's a temple in every town you don't get revived because the only death is permanent story death. Yeah, I do the KO'd thing. Or "DYIN" as my beloved Phantasy Star 4 and it's 4-letter limit would say. Nothing a good night's sleep won't fix, I'm sure.

I'm fine with religion in games so long as it's handled competently, just like everything else. I'm a bit tired of "the archbishop is secretly evil!" and I did play one extremely heavy-handed anti-organized-religion game back in September (I forget the name but it was an RPG Maker one) and that was so preachy I dropped it.

 

[captainproton]

Yeah, the Surprisingly Evil Cleric is pretty tired at this point.

Most of the clergy in my game provide revival services in the form of Rosary Bead and Life Stone items you can purchase, as well as de-zombifying Reliquaries and healing Blessed Water. Usually, the opening text of the shop scene is something like, "Would you like to contribute to our roof fund?"

My MC is a novice servant of the goddess Libra (aka, a Librarian), while another PC is a priestess of another goddess of the global pantheon.

 

[Point08]

There is religion in my game, as I feel a world is usually a little empty without at least some hint of it, since throughout human history there has always been some form of religion. Also, since my game is in a fantasy setting, there is magic, which definitely has an impact. It allows for say, tribal religions, to provide their practitioners with some power, but doesn't necessarily imply that there is in fact any real spiritual being. When it comes to more organized religion, this also exists in my game, and as in the real world it is somewhat complex. What I mean by that is you might have people who are good people, but do bad things because they think it's what their religion tells them to do, or the opposite, people who aren't very good people but try to be due to their religious beliefs. The higher echelons of power within the organized religion(s) contain people much like those in life, people who truly believe, and people who use their position for political gain. Don't worry though, there is no pretend-to-be-good-but-actually-evil high priest in my game.

I'm not big on black and white characters, meaning the white knight and evil villain. Sure, some people are generally good, and some people are complete jerks, but almost everyone moves throughout that spectrum. I suppose that might seem off topic, but I point it out because people's behavior is impacted by the events in their life, and how they interpret those events, which is of course strongly influenced by their beliefs. In that regard, religion, even as a minor backdrop, can be a powerful tool in either plot, or in my opinion often more importantly, character development.

That's my 1.5 cents. (Not quite worth a full 2).

 

[Probotector 200X]

Typically, I make up deities and religions for my worlds. Doesn't really require extensive research and it shouldn't offend anybody. And it's fun too.

One project has the Church of Bunny. They worship a Bunny Goddess. They tend to dress like Bunny Girls. The capital of this religion is full of Bunny Girl soldiers. I...haven't decided that much about the religion yet. I suppose I could have a the Bunny Goddess be a "Luck Goddess" of sorts, but that seems to obvious...

In my main RPG Maker universe, I mix some real-world based deities with new ideas and new deities and religions. It has a heavy focus on Ancient Egyptian and Norse mythology/deities/religions.

 

[Foron]

Thoughts about religion in games in general?

Know what you're doing and think through about the implications of it.

Dragon Quest 9 is a good example of riskiness here. You are a celestrian (TOTALLY NOT AN ANGEL THOUGH), and you descendlosign that status.

The remaining celestrians, as well as the final boss,hate humans, insulting that they have no special abilities.

Not to mention Zenus (God in the game) wants to wipe away the planet because humanity has been corrupted.

...Yeeeeaah....

 

[Warpmind]

Typically, I make up deities and religions for my worlds. Doesn't really require extensive research and it shouldn't offend anybody. And it's fun too.

One project has the Church of Bunny. They worship a Bunny Goddess. They tend to dress like Bunny Girls. The capital of this religion is full of Bunny Girl soldiers. I...haven't decided that much about the religion yet. I suppose I could have a the Bunny Goddess be a "Luck Goddess" of sorts, but that seems to obvious...

In my main RPG Maker universe, I mix some real-world based deities with new ideas and new deities and religions. It has a heavy focus on Ancient Egyptian and Norse mythology/deities/religions.

Clearly, a Bunny Goddess would be a deity of Luck, Hop and Fertility.

 

[captainproton]

Would that be anything like Faith, Hop and Charity?

 

[Warpmind]

Possibly, though that's a question we could be rabbiting on about all day.

 

[captainproton]

Right. And we shouldn't just hare off on a tangent anyway.

 

[Wavelength]

My instinct is that in the last decade the aesthetics of religion (temples, priests, etc.) have become more separate from any type of specific gameplay function (healing, resurrection, etc.).  Two games with prominent religious symbolism that immediately come to mind for me are Dragon Warrior 3 (where the aesthetic and function were highly intertwined) and Tales of Symphonia (where they were entirely divorced).

I haven't introduced any mention of religion into any of my games yet, but I want to for one of my heavily character-based projects.  Still not sure whether I want to make the core trappings of worship closer to Christianity or Shinto, or to have both in the same place as a kind of admission that a small town can't accommodate everyone's beliefs... but in any case it's going to be something that some characters are very into, some characters aren't, and serves no function in terms of combat/stats-related gameplay (although it serves social functions, which are another important type of gameplay).

I'm a pretty religious and spiritual person in my own life, but as a game designer, I really letting a game remain agnostic as to the role of the divine, rather than assigning it some specific gameplay function like resurrection.  There's definitely room to give religiously-charged objects (etc.) a gameplay role if the themes of the game are equally religious, but I feel like... I guess I feel that giving religion some random gameplay function without addressing what religion is, or at least defining your game's version of the supernatural, just feels a bit cheap.