The Disciple's Fears and Challenges.

[drakedude]

Now, we've all discussed the counter to Magi's unbelievable power... but we should remember that this is a low fantasy game, and as such, another problem presents itself. What is there to stop the world from filling up with Disciples? Enemy "gods", religious intolerance, yes, but once you manage to get a powerful "god" on your side, what do you have to worry about? What's to stop you from recruiting spellcasters/controlled "godly" conduits from recruiting by the hundreds and thousands?

Ah. Yes. I've got something... Disciples are "godly" conduits, yes? They ask their god to feed the spell they wish to cast power and don't actually do it themselves... if you're a disciple, there should be a possibility that "gods" will cast spells through you which you did not ask for. In addition to this, while being linked so closely to a "god" has it's advantages, it must likewise have it's... disadvantages. If a "gods" power wanes, so will yours, and if that is hurt or becomes weak, be it through the destruction of a temple or the loss of his followers, so shall you.

Discuss! I want all the ideas abounding in those big old brains of yours, community!

[Bull]

Perhaps very popular/powerful gods become vain and demanding....requiring blood sacrifices (i.e dynamic ecology for disciples?? ).

If a "gods" power wanes, so will yours, and if that is hurt or becomes weak, be it through the destruction of a temple or the loss of his followers, so shall you.

At the same time I expect the gods to be very unhappy with god-hoppers who are always looking to change to the most followed religion - better get flagellating!

[Bear]

Some very good points here. Hopefully there won't be too many of them though. Although an axe to the face IS an axe to the face, I'm sure some group will decide the hate disciples and want to kill them all.

[Romtim]

it is pretty logical to make the disciples power depend on the god's power

[master]

well maybe each god has a certain amount of power based upon how much his/her/them worshipper pray to him/her/them. so a disciple would have to prove his worth to the god by converting worshippers and leading rituals or sermons or whatever. and of course the more disciples there are the less overall power there'll be for a god to divide between them.

so maybe an association rulng a territory could impose manditory religion to increase the power of the patron god while killing off all disciple not permitted by that association. or they could decide not to be fascist psychos and ignore/use less powerful magic.

[tbiggy]

THis is a great thought here.

[Chance]

Things to ponder: I am a priest of the most powerful god in Caerus. I give a prayer once in a while. Give a coin or two in the offering. And generally support the teachings of the church. or I am the High Priest of a lesser god. I have given the god 3/4 of the power that he has from getting new worshipers, to guiding the worshippers to make offerings. There is no one more devout than to my god. I have put my life on the line time and time again in defense of my god and his worshippers.

Which disciple do you think would have more power? As Master was pointing out: Just because one god is strong and another is weak, it also depends not just on the power of the god, but how much of that power the god would offer the disciple.

If a disciple goes out and uses the god's power all the time to no great effect, should this not matter on how much power the god offers the disciple as well? (Say the disciple heals every scratch on every person in town, rather than putting dressings on the scratches and saving the magical healing when someone was about to pass away and thus making it more of a miracle to the populace and draw more worshippers to the god.)

[master]

Things to ponder: I am a priest of the most powerful god in Caerus. I give a prayer once in a while. Give a coin or two in the offering. And generally support the teachings of the church. or I am the High Priest of a lesser god. I have given the god 3/4 of the power that he has from getting new worshipers, to guiding the worshippers to make offerings. There is no one more devout than to my god. I have put my life on the line time and time again in defense of my god and his worshippers.

Which disciple do you think would have more power? As Master was pointing out: Just because one god is strong and another is weak, it also depends not just on the power of the god, but how much of that power the god would offer the disciple.

If a disciple goes out and uses the god's power all the time to no great effect, should this not matter on how much power the god offers the disciple as well? (Say the disciple heals every scratch on every person in town, rather than putting dressings on the scratches and saving the magical healing when someone was about to pass away and thus making it more of a miracle to the populace and draw more worshippers to the god.)

well there are a large number of factors

the personal policy of the god [only worshippers may be healed]
how devout the desciple is ["though shalt not not eat pork." says tthe god, "screw you" say the desciple. god doesnt give much power]
the total number of worshippers versus the total number of disciples. theres only so much power to go around.
how devout the worshipper are, if they don't go to religious ceremonies or pray often, the god won't recieve power from them.
the geographic area, if you are in a rival gods territory he may be pissed and interfere.

the system I'd have is that each god has a sort of stat which is the total amount of power he has. that stat reaches zero the gods dead. but the god needs worshippers to increase the stat, so he needs to do miracles [which use up the stat] to convine people. It would be a careful balance of how much power is given to disciples to convince worshipper to keep worshipping and not giving more than the gross power brought in. basic economics, if your expenditure is greater than your profit you'll go bankrupt fairly quickly,'

So the disciples gods like the best are those who have the most number of followers and don't use their power for frivolous things like healing worshippers of other gods. the ones they're on the verge of excommunicating are those who don't lead sermons, don't convert players and use the tiny amount of power for personal gain, such as using what tiny amount of magic given to them magic to cheat in games with dice or cards [ie gambling] or whatever. especially if they don't follow the commandments [don't eat the flesh of animals says the high priest, the low priest says, how about some steak].

I'm sure you understand which priest would have the most power. some gods should be jerks and not allow the power to be wasted upon non worshippers. other may be evil and have their priests do insane things for the power rush. a ccult of assassin disciples may be powerful becuase each assassination is a human sacrifice. each sacrifice would give the power of ten or a hundred worshipers to the god.

I expect to see the power of each disciple vary a lot depending on the situation, if its a ritual with a lot of regular worshipper singing hymns in the background the god could just redirect the energy towards the results of the ritual, allowing extremely strong spells if you have enough rituals. and if there is an inquisition killing all the worshippers of the god the god may prefer to pull a deus ex machina and use the energy given off as an investment to protect the current stock of worshipper isntead of having none left and dying.

On a normal day a disciples access could depend on what he's doing. if he's protecting another normal worshipper in a fight [buffs or wards or whatever] he may get access to stronger spells than if he was doing it for a random player. the same with increasing crop yields on a farm, if it isn't owned by a worshipper the god may not respond.

the main problem is having the ai being able to realise the difference between a potential convert and a random player. maybe the disciple could name a difference in the prayer, and if he doesnt convert the player, the god would see more attempts as bad investmnents and the disciple as incompetents, reducing the normal power a disciple could call on. One who has a 100% conversion rate might get access to more power. Just as one who follows the commandments would.

that said I see the point with difference in large religions and small ones. small ones may have less worshippers, but less disciples would be needed to tend to those worshipers. so the difference in power for the average disciple would be more or less the same, a favoured high priest or some important event may drum up more total power in a large religion compared to a small one, but it should depend mainly on the specific situation.

[Acaro]

Just had the idea what would be if it would be possible as a mage to become a god under special circumstances? They could loose their physical body and had to influence the world trough disciples. This would also explain why gods forbid theor disciples to become mages: they don't want rivals since it makes it even harder for them to survive. Just to be clear, if there would be something in this game something that is extremly rare and hard to achieve and is probably something most people don't want to happen since you have to rely on your followers to act for you. If it would be possible to become a god it would add another huge load of sand into the game. You would be literally in "god-mode" and always have to do your best to survive (look at masters post), invisible, bodyless and the only thing you can do is decide how much power you want to give your disciples, maybe you could possess them even for a short time if you really want something to happen.
(Maybe gods should have perma-death since they don't die as long as they have followers and still magical energy?)

[master]

Just had the idea what would be if it would be possible as a mage to become a god under special circumstances? They could loose their physical body and had to influence the world trough disciples. This would also explain why gods forbid theor disciples to become mages: they don't want rivals since it makes it even harder for them to survive. Just to be clear, if there would be something in this game something that is extremly rare and hard to achieve and is probably something most people don't want to happen since you have to rely on your followers to act for you. If it would be possible to become a god it would add another huge load of sand into the game. You would be literally in "god-mode" and always have to do your best to survive (look at masters post), invisible, bodyless and the only thing you can do is decide how much power you want to give your disciples, maybe you could possess them even for a short time if you really want something to happen.
(Maybe gods should have perma-death since they don't die as long as they have followers and still magical energy?)

that is a great idea. there are a few problems [which hopefully, since I like the idea] could be sorted out.

1. what happens when a players not online. I would suggest that each time a god player logged on they could look through the records of disciple spells and choose how much power each would get based on those records. A bad god would find himself dead, a good god with good management skills wouldn't. But if they wish they could set other systems, say disciples only get spells when the god is logged on with each spell having to be approved by the player. it would stop waste and stuff, but the god probably wouldn't have many worshippers. or they could set it to work like npc gods but with player imput. the first and last both have more hands off approach which could be bad, but the second is bad management and definately would be bad.i'd go with the first but i'd also add some gameplay in the form of being able to teleport and send "visions" to your disciples as messages and stuff. So players would be more active gods in the greek style [oracle of delphi, etc.] while the npcs could take a more hands off approach. Or maybe gms could spend a few hours everyday roleplaying as npc gods. there'd have to be careful monitering to see they don't cheat but if it works even the npc disciples could have a few prophetic dreams or whatever.