Gaming and Pagans

[kmusser]

So one of the workshops we're planning to do at FSG, thought up by divalion, is a discussion about the crossover between gaming and Paganism. So I'd like to here from both gamers and Pagans.

What games have particularly interesting and/or unique Magic systems or have an interesting take on religion?

For the Pagans, have you adapted ideas from games into your spiritual and/or magical practice and if so what ideas from what games?

For those that are both, have you brought ideas from your spiritual and/or magical practice back into your games?

Any other thoughts on the subject?

Comments

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Unknown Armies and Shadowrun.

UA treats magic as not something you do but something you are.

Shadowrun treats magic as a new field of science- there are predictable laws, but occasionally something eats you.

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

I think Paul Hume (an OTO type) wrote some of the magic system for Shadowrun...

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Which would, I'd imagine, explain some of it.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

okay, take this with the proverbial salt mine 'cause I wrote the basic structure of the faith rules...

Chivalry & Sorcery: The Rebirth

mages, priestly mages & priests.

Yes, the structure as presented in book 2 is highly catholicized but the base underlying structure does work for pagan faiths.

(I'm working on the clarification book, so sue me.)

I'll go into more detail if requested.

[kmusser]

Could I borrow a copy at some point?

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

watcha doing tomorrow? we're running an event at the house starting @ 11:30 am.

*eg*

[kmusser]

Afraid I've already made plans for tomorrow. :-(

[allura.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's what you are looking for but a short but humorously true story:

I was playing a wizard in a D&D campaign, and after I cast a "sleep" spell, I actually did fall asleep, pretty much instantly.

Talk about your powerful magick!

[telarus.livejournal.com]

Mage: the Ascension (White-Wolf) Open Magick System, Paradigm dependant, pretty consistent, throw out the dice rules [WW d10 probabilities aren't very pretty]

EarthDawn (Origionally FASAm, now Living Room Games, and a New Zeland company producing Earthdawn Classic) Every Hero in the manefistation of the high level of magic, channeled throught a personal worldview of the Adept. Act contrary to your Discipline, and the magic leaves you until you do something to 'atone'. Actual Spell-Caster (Wizard, Illusionist, Elementalist, Nethermancer) can get complicated, as you get to shake off the gloss of the Physical Adepts, and start 'seeing' Threads and Patterns. One of my favorite parts was the way Legendary Weapons evolved thro participating in Legendary Events.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

I always had a problem with Mage, but it was mostly that the setting was ass and that it played with others worse than any other genres. If you have very creative and intelligent people playing, I imagine it could be cool, but I never cared for it.

[telarus.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with you. The 1st ed setting was ok-good. The 2nd ed setting improved some of the faults, yet introduced a _lot_ more....I just liked the magick system, and have really wanted to rip it out and attach it to something like RISUS (www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm).

[evcelt.livejournal.com]

Glorantha (the world, not the Runequest system) has a wonderfully realized mythic background.

There was this game about playing medieval mages whose title I can't for the life of me remember... WW ended up buying it and taking some of the ideas for the WoD- the Tremere were originally one of the mage orders in that game...

Personal experience: I've been fascinated with hermetic magick for a long time, but I learned more about it from studying to play MacGregor Mathers in a LARP than I ever did for years before. And now I'm playing another Scottish Hermeticist (fictional this time) in a LARP campaign.

[kmusser]

The medieval mages game is Ars Magica, and I'll certainly be using it as it has one of my favorite magic systems in it.

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

Ars MAgica is awesome.

And if you look at how it's structured, Mage is just a simplified AM. (I think it suffers for this, but a lot of people prefer Mage, so I could be wrong.)

[telarus.livejournal.com]

I like that the guys who designed Mage broke the magick system out of the Hermetic Paradigm.....The rest of the game (and really, the WW system) I could've done without. That said, Ars Magica kicked serious grey-faced ass, I kinda regret that I never got a chance to play it. Mage was _almost_ too high concept for a lot of the groups I played with.