How to RP Diety Relationships w/ topsy-turvy Like vs dislike?

[Tanman]

I do believe that my statement did ask, would your god hold it against the person who is committing these action or at your expenses.

My answer did say it would regardless.

On the other side of the spectrum there would be a good chance a good align god wouldn't hold it against his cleric, if he saw that his cleric truly acted out of compassion.

My thought on this is that it still would. The cleric is *still* using divine powers that he granted them on people that worshipped enemy dieties. Regardless of whether its a compassionate thing or not. I don't think its dependent on that at all.

Obviously if you're character is following an evil align god, the god would hold it against the cleric even if the cleric did not know.

Not true at all. Just because the diety is 'good' alignment, doesn';t mean that they won't resent that action. Look at Toran.

The question is what punishment would the diety do? Toran denied divine powers to those that acted otherwise whereas Corath might do something sinister in addition to that...like a few years of pain amongst other things.

[Gulnyr]

I think you're putting too much thought into this compassionate ignoramus.  I don't think any compassionate god is going to ding a Cleric for being accidentally compassionate to an enemy occasionally, but if it becomes a habit, I'm sure the god would take action to stop that sort of behavior until the Cleric wised up.  Gods can't have direct representatives running around being utterly oblivious, after all.

[Honora]

Everyone put on your necklaces with What Would (insert first initial of your diety here) Do?  

What Would Toran Do?
What Would Mist Do?
What Would Xeen Do?

WW(diety initial)D - an acronym to live by!

[Dorganath]

I think you're putting too much thought into this compassionate ignoramus.  I don't think any compassionate god is going to ding a Cleric for being accidentally compassionate to an enemy occasionally, but if it becomes a habit, I'm sure the god would take action to stop that sort of behavior until the Cleric wised up.  Gods can't have direct representatives running around being utterly oblivious, after all.

(quoted for emphasis)

[Hellblazer]

Divine relation is what? A level 0 spell? I would have thought a cleric, champion or whomever is the focus of this debate would/should absolutely make liberal usage of this spell. I don't think I have ever been on an adventure with DMOE's Muireann where she hasn't just either cast this at the very start on someone new to her or asked people point blank who their deity was.
Having said that, I'm not sure if the spell works on a raiseable corpse. A question for someone more mechanics savvy that I. If it didn't, maybe an Aeridinte would 'risk it' and raise them but I wouldn't imagine too many clerics of the other God/desses might feel such an obligation.

Yep thats the second on my list beside me I saw use that spell.

It CANNOT be emphasized enough then, over and over, that the person on the receiving end of the Divine Relations DOES NOT KNOW IT HAS BEEN CAST. Corba went through this with Jaren, back in the day - she cast it on him and he never let her forget it, reminding her in character that it was "rude". And this was a GM!

Divine Relations can't be seen by the recipient.  Just keep reminding yourself of that...and use it!

And yes, once it was explained to me properly a while back, I totally agree with you here.

[Acacea]

Seriously, the whole point of the issue that brought about this thread (the reminder) was to serve as a reminder to anyone who knew perfectly well the relationships but were inclined to shelve deity concerns in order to be happy casting blessing buddies. Like I said ... we can all come up with hundreds of examples to quibble over, but they weren't really the point.

[Aragon]

@ Lonnarin's first and original post that started this massive thread.

Lonnarin I am absolutely offended that you would use the word "good" and Chanda in the same sentence or even refer to Chanda being a good anything.  

[Falonthas]

@Aragon thats true cause she even tasted bad when i bit her

[Angelic]

(Gender references all masculine for sake of brevity)

I thought the xp loss that a priest of a particular deity incurred when raising the follower of his God's enemy was the manifestation of his God's brow furrowing over the whole incident?

Not so?
It is only part thereof?

Perhaps a sliding scale of xp hurt could be scripted. First time you raise the follower of an unfriendly deity, your God smacks you 5,000xp. The next time it is 10,000xp. The time after, 20,000xp and so on and so forth.

[Hellblazer]

The loss of xp is based on the alignment of the character you raise

An allied deity or same deity as the cleric suffers no loss. As to all others, the cleric would suffer a loss. That is if he character has a soul stone or not with 2 exception.

see this

LORE: Raise Dead

*note to self* don't post when you have trouble keeping your eyes open :p

[lonnarin]

I wish druids had that old 2nd edition spell reincarnate...  You raise them and their death effects for the next 10 minutes is that they have to be some random animal.  Not as crippling as being dead and bindstoned, but still righteously humiliating.

[Weeblie]

As I see it, the XP penalty from Raise Dead/Ressurection does not come from your god directly (i.e. your god doesn't smite you). Instead, it's the sacrifice parts of your own soul to bring back another. Like... if a huge amount of power had to be channeled somewhere, and if there are no presence of any soulstone, you have to channel that power through yourself, which puts your own soul into strain.

And why does the XP become worse the worse the relation between the deities are? Well...

Perhaps, if you are trying to ressurect a friendly deity, your own god will "help you a little bit more" compared to when you are ressurecting a unfriendly one!

[Angelic]

Yes, that makes sense. However, to my way of thinking, implicit in a deity's ability to reduce the strain of their priest raising someone by divine interaction would also be their ability to increase said strain.

My thought was if the 'cost' of a deity's displeasure was hard coded to take effect here at this point it would reduce the subjectivity of any GM-driven divine retribution - thus removing the ever present potential for a player to cry foul as to the treatment they received for their RP suspect actions from one GM versus the treatment another player received from another GM for a perceived similar RP suspect action?

As I see it, the XP penalty from Raise Dead/Ressurection does not come from your god directly (i.e. your god doesn't smite you). Instead, it's the sacrifice parts of your own soul to bring back another. Like... if a huge amount of power had to be channeled somewhere, and if there are no presence of any soulstone, you have to channel that power through yourself, which puts your own soul into strain.

And why does the XP become worse the worse the relation between the deities are? Well...

Perhaps, if you are trying to ressurect a friendly deity, your own god will "help you a little bit more" compared to when you are ressurecting a unfriendly one!

[Weeblie]

It can of course be scripted in the spells so... lets say... it's no longer possible to cast friendly spells on followers of enemy deities, or that there is a certain % chance for something to happen if it's done.

Actually, that would be rather easy to do. But then, one can ask oneself, why is it not done?

Well, the answer is very simple: Scripts cannot detect the RP situation by itself.

Different deities handle punishments in different ways, and on the basis of what they consider out of line and what's not isn't the same.

And lastly, we have that the punishments from the deities are mostly in RP nature, and not shown in any game mechanic sense (except for if you get your deity field wiped, that is). For example, being talked to by another cleric of the same faith, or suddenly having some nightmares about what was done...

The choice of whether to have scripted penalties or not is like the choice of whether having scripted quests or DM run ones! The first being 110% fair while the later is surely more fun, even though at times they can be perceived as unfair (like one DM allows X but not Y and another DM allows the opposite)...

[Angelic]

I wouldn't draw the same parallel myself. Wouldn't it be great if GMs could adjudicate on everything? Sure would. Unfortunately, not realistic given scarce resources. Isn't the raise dead penalty system as it exists now scripted? My thought was a variation on what already exists rather than a completely new concept.

The choice of whether to have scripted penalties or not is like the choice of whether having scripted quests or DM run ones! The first being 110% fair while the later is surely more fun, even though at times they can be perceived as unfair (like one DM allows X but not Y and another DM allows the opposite)...

[Dorganath]

Like Weeblie mentions, scripts can't take RP into account.

Also, we don't generally allow a character to lose levels due to XP loss from death, spell requirements and spell effects, so eventually, that increasing XP penalty will get to a point where further increases do not matter.

The XP penalty gets their attention, that's for sure.  What's far more important to us though is the RP of the situation. There are ways to aid the enemies of one's deity without ever casting a single spell or doing anything else of a mechanical nature.  Raising a dead enemy is one thing out of many that will catch our attention.  This GM adjudication of such things is not a new concept.  It's something we've done for a good long time, only we have been overly lax  in recent times.

[miltonyorkcastle]

We've been overly lax in this one area of enforcement, but not due to laziness on the part of the team. Rather, it's that we've been distracted (and therefore busy) with a myriad of other issues (Please don't make me list them all. I'll be here all day.). Also, the number of GMs on the team shrunk, and has only recently been filled back in.

Just wanted to point that out. As the saying goes, "We're only human." There's only so much we can do at one time.