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[GoblinCookie]

That, in fact, should be the possibility. Maybe the slider in worldgen, at least parameter in advanced worldgen - how much the setting of generating world is mythical.

Why cannot we leave the question of the existance/true nature of gods an open question that the game does not answer? 

First of all, most unreal god would be the real god (or godlike beings, or persons who impersonated gods) after some time and some information obstacles. Second - to allow the civilization make mistakes in their recognition of gods - and maybe to allow another reason for gods to send curses, who knows.

But yeah, there should be some checks for cults of unreal gods (or real but lazy gods who haven't shown themselves for a long time in the world of mortals) to die out eventually, and there should be possibility for mages to challenge gods and to claim their deeds as magic ones. Maybe - with the similar to "Age of Myths - Age of Legends - Golden Age" progression.

But basically I want to see the misunderstanding between gods and civilizations, and maybe some heresies, schisms, religious wars etc etc, in the world where gods have their own stakes.

I do not think we should have a clear distinction between real and unreal gods in the actual mechanics.  I do think there should be arguments over attribution of supernatural events, with the option of people coming up with a natural explanation or replicating them using magical powers of their own.  Basically the gods are not proven to be false but instead we end up with gods who 'might be false' since everything they are supposed to have done can be explained away as the result of nature or magic.  Then we can have the believers refuse to accept the secular explanations that undermine their religion and rival religions/atheists try to undermine their own religion by establishing the alternative explanation as 'fact'.

[cochramd]

That, in fact, should be the possibility. Maybe the slider in worldgen, at least parameter in advanced worldgen - how much the setting of generating world is mythical.

Why cannot we leave the question of the existance/true nature of gods an open question that the game does not answer?

Because the game itself needs to know. You can make it a mystery to the beings in a world, but when someone prays, the game needs to know who if anyone is going to hear that prayer, what they can do to fulfill that prayer and the chances of them actually doing so.

[nothingSpecial]

Why cannot we leave the question of the existance/true nature of gods an open question that the game does not answer?

We can. But it's not interesting. And that will be step back from what we have now - there gods are here, just very limited in their actions.

Basically the gods are not proven to be false but instead we end up with gods who 'might be false' since everything they are supposed to have done can be explained away as the result of nature or magic.  Then we can have the believers refuse to accept the secular explanations that undermine their religion and rival religions/atheists try to undermine their own religion by establishing the alternative explanation as 'fact'.

If we have slider, this situation can be made by player. If this is a complex parameter (with minimum and maximum), than player can try and go out to seek if the gods are really there. And fail or not not.

Without slider we've got less possibilities - less than the proposal, and on the current level. Without answer to game we've got less possibilities - less than current game. Now we have disinterested and interested gods. I want to make for them possible to be also scheming, pretending and misunderstood.

[SixOfSpades]

What if all the curses have nothing to do with gods at all but are simply magically based? . . . There is also the issue of magic, if magic exists then it calls in question the whole gods thing since people are far less pursuaded by 'miracles' in such a world . . .

I don't know if Toady has confirmed that he intends to have any non-divine magic at all. Miracles and other spells performed by deities and their priests are obviously divine, and while Toady has said that most (all?) artifacts will have magical properties, but even those are products of godly interference. The only mages, per se, that I know of are the necromancers, and even they learn the tricks of their trade directly from the gods. (And if there's a god of Undeath, then boom! they all become his priests anyway.)

The standard for believability is basically competative, your own god has to be able to do all the things that the other gods can do or nobody believes in it.

No, the god has to be able to do things that no one else can do. Only the god of Metals (or a High Priest of same) can shape a raw iron ingot into an anvil without touching it with either heat or hammer. Only a god of Agriculture can grow a crop to maturation at 10x the normal rate, or even create an all-new kind of plant. The power to have raw gemstones wriggle directly out of the rock walls of their own volition probably should be shared by the gods of Earth and Minerals, but it's more appropriately a Jewels thing. Only the god of Boundaries (and perhaps Trade) can create a force field that prevents any export-restricted goods from leaving the Trade Depot. And so on.

[nothingSpecial]

Only the god of Boundaries (and perhaps Trade) can create a force field that prevents any export-restricted goods from leaving the Trade Depot. And so on.

That'd be a very useful god.

The instant your mayor bans trading anvils you enter the race between your priest to pray for the god of boundaries and trade and caravan that just left with your anvil.

[GoblinCookie]

Why cannot we leave the question of the existance/true nature of gods an open question that the game does not answer?

Because the game itself needs to know. You can make it a mystery to the beings in a world, but when someone prays, the game needs to know who if anyone is going to hear that prayer, what they can do to fulfill that prayer and the chances of them actually doing so.

Not really.  The game only has to know that so and so has prayed, that something happened and that certain people believe that it was god X or Y answering said prayer.  The person might have simply used their own magical powers without actually realising it might they not?

I don't know if Toady has confirmed that he intends to have any non-divine magic at all. Miracles and other spells performed by deities and their priests are obviously divine, and while Toady has said that most (all?) artifacts will have magical properties, but even those are products of godly interference. The only mages, per se, that I know of are the necromancers, and even they learn the tricks of their trade directly from the gods. (And if there's a god of Undeath, then boom! they all become his priests anyway.)

The people of the world presently believe that their magic comes from the gods, that does not however make them right though.  We could see all manner of hijinks develop is somebody manage to invent a form of secular magic that can replicate certain divine miracles.

No, the god has to be able to do things that no one else can do. Only the god of Metals (or a High Priest of same) can shape a raw iron ingot into an anvil without touching it with either heat or hammer. Only a god of Agriculture can grow a crop to maturation at 10x the normal rate, or even create an all-new kind of plant. The power to have raw gemstones wriggle directly out of the rock walls of their own volition probably should be shared by the gods of Earth and Minerals, but it's more appropriately a Jewels thing. Only the god of Boundaries (and perhaps Trade) can create a force field that prevents any export-restricted goods from leaving the Trade Depot. And so on.

Precisely, instead of having to decide which gods are false we simply have secular and divine magics as seperately developing trees.  As the former grows more developed, they can replicate the miracles of certain gods which then calls into question those gods power and even existance.  We do not have to come up with a list of objectively false and real gods, but instead the two trees randomly coincide so that particular gods find their miracles matched by secular magical feats, ditto with scientific/technological accomplishments.

[cochramd]

Not really.  The game only has to know that so and so has prayed, that something happened and that certain people believe that it was god X or Y answering said prayer.  The person might have simply used their own magical powers without actually realising it might they not?

The game still needs to know. If the individual has magical powers of their own, it needs to know that. If these magical powers end up being attributed to an intervening deity, it needs to know that. If it is possible for anyone to know or suspect the truth of the matter, it needs to know that too. There needs to be an ultimate underlying truth upon which lies and misunderstandings can be heaped to create the inaccurate worldview of the people living in that world.

[nothingSpecial]

Let me get this straight. GoblinCookie, why exactly you want to have no answer to the existence on gods in the generated world itself? Maybe we miss some opportunities it bring into game. Why "maybe it was magic of one who prays" is more preferable than "this world has no answered prayers; this world has gods answering on prayers; this world has people who prays manifesting their wishes onto real world"?

Except that it's easy - because it's even easier to keep current system "some civilizations can have their gods, and those gods are act upon creatures in that specific case".

I do not oppose to having non-divine magic accomplishing all the godly deeds and put all the gods into oblivion (if they existed), but the game really need to have answer, and there more interested user can control that answer the better.

[SixOfSpades]

The people of the world presently believe that their magic comes from the gods, that does not however make them right though.  We could see all manner of hijinks develop is somebody manage to invent a form of secular magic that can replicate certain divine miracles.

I can't really say that I'm a fan of dwarves mastering secular magic (especially on top of all the other advantages they already have), but I am a fan of hijinks, and especially a fan of cultural differences. So if it's possible for one dwarf civilization to worship a pantheon of gods who are all real, while their neighbors worship a set of gods who are actually puppets run by mages posing as their clergy, a third nation has a mixture of the two, and a fourth has knowingly abandoned all religion and is openly practicing empirical magic, while a fifth nation eschews mumbo-jumbo entirely and instead pursues technology . . . to me, that sounds like an incredibly interesting world, and I think any step toward it is one worth taking.

I've already proposed adding wordgen sliders to influence things like the odds of a Strange Mood being one of the fey/secretive/possessed types, producing an artifact which will almost certainly be magical, or one of the (as-yet nonexistent) Inspiration type, which produces no artifact but instead unlocks a scientific discovery or invention -- thus allowing the user to control the Science vs. Magic feel of their fort, or indeed the world in general. It seems just as logical to allow a slider or two to influence where individual civs (or the world) will fall on the scale between credulous idolaters and skeptical warlocks.


As for deciding whether or not a god is (knowingly or unknowingly) false; sorry, but the game does have to know that. Neither the player, nor the dwarven worshipper, nor his priest, nor even his High Priest, need to know the objective truth about who (or what, or nothing at all) is answering that dwarf's prayers, but that doesn't change the fact that an objective truth MUST exist somewhere.

[nothingSpecial]

I can't really say that I'm a fan of dwarves mastering secular magic (especially on top of all the other advantages they already have), but I am a fan of hijinks, and especially a fan of cultural differences. So if it's possible for one dwarf civilization to worship a pantheon of gods who are all real, while their neighbors worship a set of gods who are actually puppets run by mages posing as their clergy, a third nation has a mixture of the two, and a fourth has knowingly abandoned all religion and is openly practicing empirical magic, while a fifth nation eschews mumbo-jumbo entirely and instead pursues technology . . . to me, that sounds like an incredibly interesting world, and I think any step toward it is one worth taking.

I've already proposed adding wordgen sliders to influence things like the odds of a Strange Mood being one of the fey/secretive/possessed types, producing an artifact which will almost certainly be magical, or one of the (as-yet nonexistent) Inspiration type, which produces no artifact but instead unlocks a scientific discovery or invention -- thus allowing the user to control the Science vs. Magic feel of their fort, or indeed the world in general. It seems just as logical to allow a slider or two to influence where individual civs (or the world) will fall on the scale between credulous idolaters and skeptical warlocks.

Oh this, so much this.

It's basically planned feature (slider "All myths are true" vs "Mundane world") duplicated into civilization creation, right and tied with new knowledge system?

[GoblinCookie]

The game still needs to know. If the individual has magical powers of their own, it needs to know that. If these magical powers end up being attributed to an intervening deity, it needs to know that. If it is possible for anyone to know or suspect the truth of the matter, it needs to know that too. There needs to be an ultimate underlying truth upon which lies and misunderstandings can be heaped to create the inaccurate worldview of the people living in that world.

The game only needs to distribute powers between secular and magical tech trees.  If a civilization develops a secular power than matches with an existing religious power exercised by a 'god' in the past, then people can start to question the god's existence.  However both trees do not remain static, a god that previously was 'debunked' can do something new and then people can start to believe in it.

Let me get this straight. GoblinCookie, why exactly you want to have no answer to the existence on gods in the generated world itself? Maybe we miss some opportunities it bring into game. Why "maybe it was magic of one who prays" is more preferable than "this world has no answered prayers; this world has gods answering on prayers; this world has people who prays manifesting their wishes onto real world"?

Except that it's easy - because it's even easier to keep current system "some civilizations can have their gods, and those gods are act upon creatures in that specific case".

I do not oppose to having non-divine magic accomplishing all the godly deeds and put all the gods into oblivion (if they existed), but the game really need to have answer, and there more interested user can control that answer the better.

Because it is unnecessary heavy-handed narrative intervention basically, the narrator (game) is biased.  It is also mechanically unnecessary, I do not want the game to be based upon the initial premise that So and So is Right and everybody should listed to So and So.  Instead I want changes in the credibility of various beliefs over time, as the tech tree which is randomly generated is filled up. 

Basically, nowhere in the game would it ever mechanically establish that gods are or are not real.  It should always be theoretically possible for a character to believe that all gods are false and that religion is just a form of magic, it is just that this belief becomes more credible the more overlap there happens to be between the magic tree and the miracles trees as it were.

We do not have gods that are mechanically non-existent, we have gods who are redundant since everything they did can be explained away by everyday magic. 

[cochramd]

The game only needs to distribute powers between secular and magical tech trees.

If secular magic is even confusable with divine intervention. If secular magic even comes to exist. Toady has said very little about what he wants to do with gods and magic, but he has said he wants DF to be a generic fantasy setting generator; the last time I checked, the difference between secular magic and divine intervention, as well as arcane magic and divine magic in general, was obvious in most generic fantasy settings. Don't make any assumptions about how DF is going to turn out that aren't based in reality and direct quotes from Toady; that's just a road to arguing about hypotheticals that no one else thinks are ever going to occur and disappointment.

Anyhow, I've been reading about other people's experiences with the new edition, and have suggestions of my own related to gods and depictions of them: if a temple to a deity contains depictions of that deity (statues, engravings, figurines, items with decorations, etc), then those depictions can be used as "objects of worship" that dwarfs could interact with as part of their worship. Interacting with an object of worship would not be necessary for worshiping, but doing so would provide an extra happy thought beyond the one they get from satisfying their need for worship, and would allow them to worship more efficiently. The happiness from using an object of worship would depend on its value, while the efficiency bonus would usually depend on the quality of the depiction; if the depiction is made from a material of special interest to the deity, then another modifier is applied as well. If a single piece of furniture contains multiple depictions, then it is only one object of worship, but one with very high worship efficiency bonuses. If the deity is depicted as an animal, then totems of that animal as well as livestock designated as sacred animals may be used as objects of worship as well, with sacred animals providing the highest prayer efficiency bonuses of any single depiction of a deity.

Some objects of worship can be used by multiple dwarfs at the same time; dwarfs who use an object of worship at the same time will always socialize positively together while doing so (though this might also be true of simply worshiping in the same temple at the same time). In this way, worshiping together would help inspire positive bonds and erase grudges, much like in real life. Dwarfs may be get upset if there is no temple to one or more of their deities, and if said temples aren't sufficiently high value. How valuable the dwarfs expect the temples to be would depend on how devoted they are to that deity. Dwarfs would also get upset if temples to their deities contain no objects of worship, and if they were forced to worship without objects of worship because there weren't enough to go around.

[nothingSpecial]

Because it is unnecessary heavy-handed narrative intervention basically, the narrator (game) is biased.  It is also mechanically unnecessary, I do not want the game to be based upon the initial premise that So and So is Right and everybody should listed to So and So.  Instead I want changes in the credibility of various beliefs over time, as the tech tree which is randomly generated is filled up.

My suggestion includes changes in beliefs. But the first part is... I just don't understand. How from "world is highly detailed" you got to "narrator is biased"? And what does that mean?

[cochramd]

Because it is unnecessary heavy-handed narrative intervention basically, the narrator (game) is biased.  It is also mechanically unnecessary, I do not want the game to be based upon the initial premise that So and So is Right and everybody should listed to So and So.  Instead I want changes in the credibility of various beliefs over time, as the tech tree which is randomly generated is filled up.

My suggestion includes changes in beliefs. But the first part is... I just don't understand. How from "world is highly detailed" you got to "narrator is biased"? And what does that mean?

He means that, for reasons understood only by him, there is just something inherently wrong with the existence of a particular deity being a hardcoded truth or untruth even if it possible to be misled from that truth or untruth, and we should all stop questioning him and start agreeing with him mindlessly.

[nothingSpecial]

Because it is unnecessary heavy-handed narrative intervention basically, the narrator (game) is biased.  It is also mechanically unnecessary, I do not want the game to be based upon the initial premise that So and So is Right and everybody should listed to So and So.  Instead I want changes in the credibility of various beliefs over time, as the tech tree which is randomly generated is filled up.

My suggestion includes changes in beliefs. But the first part is... I just don't understand. How from "world is highly detailed" you got to "narrator is biased"? And what does that mean?

He means that, for reasons understood only by him, there is just something inherently wrong with the existence of a particular deity being a hardcoded truth or untruth even if it possible to be misled from that truth or untruth, and we should all stop questioning him and start agreeing with him mindlessly.

What about existence of dwarves? Should game not know about them too?