Priests and Faiths

[Horace]

Glim, dude, there is only so much information on a god (especially in a fictional setting). The only thing that can be added from a priest is critical thinking answers to questions - which is appropriate in game. But only gives insight to the player's critical thinking more than the literal reality of the god.

But that's roleplaying too - so perception is reality in that sense. What you're saying is totally correct, priests should roleplay answering hard questions about their gods...but learning from those priests answers isn't any different than just making up your own based on the information provided.

[Lerytha]

I was not aware Inner Circle could give quests. But either way, I think they should be able to advance people as well, with the permission of the FM.

[Glim]

Glim, dude, there is only so much information on a god (especially in a fictional setting).

I am not speaking of specifically just information on the god. All the religions, and even the gods themselves, were modeled after concepts. Death, luck, growth, destruction, and on and on. The different religions all focus on those concepts, and in doing so, they in turn give worship to the god. What a priest should explore and have a better knowledge of than the lay-follower, are those concepts, how they affect the world around them and how your character might be affected by them.

Back to philosophy, most of these concepts have been debated and interpreted and reinterpreted for thousands of years. There are always different ways of looking at them, at interpreting them, at reinterpreting them. Priests are the ones who delve into these.

That is what I mean by the knowledge and information on that faith isn't just what is contained in the sourcebooks. Those are merely guidelines. It's not just a matter of answering hard questions, but finding answer that your character is comfortable with to questions that maybe don't really have answers.

[Saranya]

I was not aware Inner Circle could give quests. But either way, I think they should be able to advance people as well, with the permission of the FM.

There is some "in-practice" variance on how these matters are handled across faiths. In one faith, two inner circle members commonly have all the interaction with new questees, creating a queue of people lined up waiting for the the annual FM log-on to move everyone to initiate.

In another faith the FM will not raise anyone else past initiate, so the FM has complete control. (I hope that FM realizes the impact on the faith's priests that policy has! Good times! )

Different strokes for different faiths is fine but I note both the above faiths tend to get a back-log of people who are a bit...frustrated.

[Horace]

Glims post:

Which from an out of character perspective is no better than an answer from a meat head fighter's answer - but the weight is only given because they're a priest, in character. My only point is, what a priest says has to be based on the foundations - the facts on the religion...what you find on the wikipedia page. Everything else, is just critical thinking - and it doesn't matter what class you happen to be playing when that is involved.

It took me a while to remember why we disagreed about this instance. It was about the wikipedia reference as being a better source for in character information than what you'd get from another PC.

I still stand by that. There is no way any player would have the patience to teach the faith as comprehensively as a wiki article does in 10 minutes. It'd take forever to convey that information in dialogue format in a conversation. If you're playing a priest and you haven't read the forgotten realms wikipedia article on them, you're missing a lot...regardless of how many texts you read in game, and how long you've spoken to priests in character.

The roleplay is great - but it isn't needed to understand the faith. And the roleplay will always be there no matter what the policy is on how you faith.
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For the record - I change my proposal to Lerytha's idea. Let inner circle members fully faith others.

[Glim]

Actually I was speaking more of what a priest should be expected to know beyond what is in the wiki or sourcebooks.

I still stand by that. There is no way any player would have the patience to teach the faith as comprehensively as a wiki article does in 10 minutes. It'd take forever to convey that information in dialogue format in a conversation.

The roleplay is great - but it isn't needed to understand the faith. And the roleplay will always be there no matter what the policy is on how you faith.

As to that, we are simply going to have to agree to disagree on this. I just now looked over en.wikipedia.org and forgottenrealms.wikia.com 's entries for Malar and I can say that I have most definitely sat down and taught and discussed the things therein to players. Even more, considering neither of them list his dogma or much of the information within Faiths and Pantheons. That's also not even including discussing the impact of his dogma on the world and the interpretation of the concepts behind it. Yes, they take a long time, but it is roleplay and it is actually quite a bit of fun. That's one of the major reasons I play a priest.

[Horace]

Actually I was speaking more of what a priest should be expected to know beyond what is in the wiki or sourcebooks.

Anything more than what is in the wiki's and sourcebooks, is just you interpreting things as your specific PC sees them. Which is good - priests should always be able to answer things, even things outside of the information provided. But you can't tell me you know more about the god than the information provided. It's a fictional setting...it's literally impossible for you to know more. The god isn't real, everything that is him is provided.

And as you said, you roleplay because it is fun, not because it is forced. You'd roleplay the same even with a system that gets people faithed faster.

[Liandria]

Wow, this thread got huge fast.

As for priest spells, could there be say one more deity made. "Pantheon" All unfaithed/uncoded priests could be given this deity so they can at least get basic spells beyond 2nd level, and maybe a really basic domain set.

I think it's incredibly important for a player to hit up cannon on their god/goddess. The books and quests in game can only convey a tiny portion of text. Even the help files are rather limited to only 30ish lines. When it comes to the deities with tons of history its really difficult to squash a decent summary into that small a box.

I have Faiths and Avatars, Demihuman Deities, Faiths and Pantheons as well as about 31 GBs of other D&D books if anyone needs a exerpt copied I'd be happy to help, just drop me a pm or message me on one of my contacts listed here.

I do know that there are Inner Circle members who are quite limited in their knowledge of the god they are following despite being long time followers. At least two did not even know there were books outside of FK relating to it. Due to this they avoid involvement often in matters of faith that may border outside of the given in game god training quest. So I'm not sure they'd want the role of FM tossed at them.

Maybe instead, what could be done to ensure the current faith manager's will is carried out. Each FM chooses someone in their faith to be a understudy of sorts. Only the GMs and that person know that should the current FM go inactive the understudy will rise and take it over, if the understudy goes innactive the FM can choose a new one.

[Lathlain]

In another faith the FM will not raise anyone else past initiate, so the FM has complete control. (I hope that FM realizes the impact on the faith's priests that policy has! Good times! )

This is the case for more than one faith - and on some occasions the faith manager in question has been asked to keep it that way by their patron deity. I shan't go into specifics, but it's probably not as political a move as it looks

I'm firmly against the concept of auto-faithing anyone, let alone a priest without some interaction with an immortal or a high-ranking faith member first. This would be like making it possible to become a paladin without undergoing a hefty roleplay induction.

I'm with the school of thought that inner-circle should be able to initiate new members, but not advance beyond that. I also entirely agree that faith managers who've been inactive for a stretch of time (6 months may be a little generous, but this isn't the time for fine-tuning) should be replaced if a suitable alternative is present. Multiple faith managers is also an excellent idea, if there are relevant candidates for the role. Fresh angles on a faith and a little voice to bring you down to earth from time to time can't be a bad thing!

[Oghma]

A few things to consider:

I personally will never ever take into account applications to become faith managers. I'd rather that player character prove them self in the game. I don't consider them a strike against the player or the character, but if you are promoted to fm I want you to know its not because you applied for it, but because you earned it in game.

I will only accept faith applications for Yondalla, because currently there is no faith manager and a very limited demand.
The reasoning, is that my application box was being filled with players not getting faithed/faith quests etc. So it was resolved to build the middle man and create faithing options in game by removing inactive faith managers or creating inner circle and fm's of potential. For the most part that has worked very well.

I've actively sought out faith hopefuls with 'quested' status to advance them to initiates. Once you have quested status you are in my opinion done your quest and ready to join, though if there are some issues it may take a bit longer.

These are my personal standards, but they can change depending on the moment. I've seen a huge improvement in faithing in the last three months, which I owe almost completely to faith managers and inner circle members taking the time to actively promote faiths and other players creating faith events. Faiths are still being assessed for the future, so it is a constantly changing process.

On a sad note, I still believe in the worthy rule, that someone must prove themselves able before joining a faith. One of these requirements might be waiting patiently for the faithing, or it may mean seeking an ic alternative to speed the process, be it organizing a faith event or actively promoting a faith you have yet to join by publishing, building or teaching.

I'm quite satisfied for the most part.

[Mouat]

Being a faith manager myself, I totally understand how there are different standards. Some FMs are just a lot more strict to who gets in and who does not. Having said that, what really is annoying is the inconsistency within some faiths.

I know for a FACT on some faiths that some get in very quickly - within a month of being quested while some others have waited for over a year and some who are still waiting to get in that same faith. Favortism? I am not sure. Definetly a double standard.

I do not mind if I have to wait a year to finally get into a faith as long as that is the standard for EVERYONE who applies to that faith.

My two cents. This is a hot topic with me... I will end there.

[Lerytha]

I tend to look for everything but favouritism, in these instances. I'll list several factors that could affect how I personally faith people, just so people can see the many, multiple factors that serve to delay a faithing process even with TWO active FMs.

* Availability of the FM
* Availability of the FM at specific timezones
* Availability of the FM for several meetings
- the introduction
- the assessment
- the teaching (sometimes more than one meeting)
- the quest-giving
- the acceptance of the quest, and the final "symbol-giving"
* Availability of the player
* Availability of the player at specific timezones
* Availability of the player for several meetings (which are the same as the ones listed above)
* Speed in which player completes quest
* Level of knowledge of deity the player reveals (if they reveal no knowledge, considerable time is spent to teach)
* OGHMA-SPECIFIC: priest-faithing for Oghma's faith takes longer than non-priests, because Ynaura and I want to ensure our priests know the dogma and the faith to a very high standard (because they are technically the true voices of the god in the world)
* Unforeseen circumstances

I know its a bit off topic to list all those factors (and there are probably more), but that's just a very brief (and hopefully polite) way to show that often when delays hold your character up more than another's character, there is a real good reason, most likely, probably covered in the factors above. And of course, some FMs may have even more stringent entrance-tests than the Oghmans, so... add several factors to that, too!

~Ol

[Mouat]

In another faith the FM will not raise anyone else past initiate, so the FM has complete control. (I hope that FM realizes the impact on the faith's priests that policy has! Good times! )

This is true with some faiths. The Imm/God will do the advancing and not the FM.

[Caelnai]

I do not mind if I have to wait a year to finally get into a faith as long as that is the standard for EVERYONE who applies to that faith.

This is a hot topic for me too. As Ol pointed out, logistics are really more the problem than "favoritism." But what really burns is that many "logistics" favour the type of player who is willing to log on 20 hours a day and pounce on the poor FM the second he/she logs in. Nagging pays off, even though we all know it isn't good for the game in the long run, as these PCs tend to burn out quickly and disappear. But how is a busy FM to know the difference between twinking and "proving themselves" like Oghma describes?

One FM recently tried to address delays by delegating quest supervision to a group if Inner Circle members. This backfired when some of the IC's diligently moved people along, while others didn't bother to log on for two months.

One benefit of a single FM or other structured "faith plan" is that everyone has to go through the same hoops, and hopefully the time/rank/advancement equals out. The FM system really helped things (thanks all!)...but of course there is always room for improvement.

[Dranso]

Mutiple FMs is the way to go. Though I could see this causing problems for some faiths so maybe their inner circle people would be granted more power. I don't think a faith manager should be fully kicked out of that spot though untill they haven't logged on for at least a year or two.

[Larethiel]

You should not forget that there are faiths that have not really constant active members, no active Inner Circles and a faith base, which activity makes it hard to pick someone out that could be an Inner Circle.

Edit: And I am against ICs being able to faith people.

[Alvirin]

I think as well that inner circle members should be able to faith characters, mind that in Forgotten Realms there are several faiths that don't have a central hierarchy, still those inner circle members in FK should answer to the faith manager(s) if available and given instructions to do so.

[Eilshalis]

This has nothing to do with priests in general but what about the rest of the classes out there. I don't know about anyone else, but getting into the other faiths (let's talk about Mystra for one) is damned near impossible because those in charge are not around much. And when they are, it's impossible to get anything done! I know my PC has been around for months now without anything to really show for it and has downright nearly given up joining the church. How does this help the deities? It doesn't. The PCs involved with getting others into the faith are literally not doing their jobs or are making everything so damned near impossible that getting in is like an elitest club. Perhaps something could be done about this because it certainly doesn't make the game fun when your PC doesn't go anywhere after all the work involved.

[Nysan]

Two sides, same coin...

1. Yeah, some faiths are deadlocked due to higher ups not being around. It sucks for folks trying to get in, been there myself.

2. Its a game, they are players like you and me, and at the end of the day... its a game (repeating, yes) and sometimes life takes priority over helping Joe the wizard get his symbol. Even imms cannot be on 24/7 or be as life-deprived as some of the playerbase. (If anyone takes the life-deprived comment poorly, please consider I have a regular habbit of spending 10+ hours in-game at a time. It is a comment about myself first, anyone else second.)

Its hard to maintain a functioning system when players trying to get in and players in control both are not consistant with their play-time. However, I can say without hesitation that the current system is a 500% better then the previous faith system. Comparing what some of my old (nearly ancient) characters went through for symbols to what some of my younglings have/are going through... hand down I'll pick the current system every time.

[Dovan]

I will start out saying, I may have very little help to add to this thread... yet I would like to at least speak my mind since this a topic that disturbs me a bit.

To say that I like this MUD is an understatement. The dynamics of interaction with others and the fact that you shape the RP, not the quests and the environments is outstanding. Hell... I even wrote up a review for TMC just to sing praise enough and hope that others can find this great environment. That being said... one part of my review was sour, and that was in relation to faithing.

I will start off by saying, I think automatic / quest faithing by npc is not a viable solution and cheapens what it takes to follow a faith. Now then... I am not familiar with the older system that Nysan refers, but I believe that the current system has... flaws. In no way do I suggest scraping it, but I would echo the thought of creating perhaps another FM per faith or allow certain ranking priests of the faiths see to faithing.

Now to the later version of priest faithing, I would suggest it would take longer time than direct interaction of a FM. I'll put no time line to this idea, as I said before... we shape the RP. But perhaps let it lie similiar in the fact of how paladin's take on squires... with much teaching and guidance before further steps can be progressed. If at such a time a priest things a hopeful is deserving, they can either seek the FM's authority or via OOC manner make contact with someone who can give the green light to the priest.

This idea would give relief to the IMM's from setting up quests / making contact with players to handle things by a case by case basis, but still keep control from rampart faithing without proper background.

As well to touch another part... I would echo the idea that 6 months is a bit long perhaps in my mind to let a FM be away before letting someone send a direct application. Halving that time seems reasonable, personally... but that is my view only. As well... I would not think to strip the FM, but perhaps this would start the process of adding a second FM amongst the faith. But to add sense of reason to having many higher powers... perhaps each FM could be delegated a certain church of a city. Again... tossing around ideas only, or hang grenades... who knows.

I truly hope I have added something of value to this discussion and please know that I have tried to approach this as neutral as I can. Perhaps some who might read this know a bit of where I stand through this all... but be that the case, know that I am trying to look beyond the me to the we. My thought process lies first, foremost, and lastly to the expansion of FK and helping is succeed as well within my power.

Apologies once more if my thoughts raise ire.