Allegiance in a homogenous culture?

[canology]

I just picked up the Big Gold Book and I'm really excited about getting back into the BRP system (played RQ back in the day).

I'm going to be using it in my own homebrew world and want to use the Allegiance rules, however, each of the cultures in my world have a single god that they worship.

Now, without a yang to the culture's ying, would Allegiance work using the following axis; (for cultural deity) vs (against cultural deity)? With "against" in this case meaning against societal mores, not necessarily for malicious ends. Like a Cimmerian barbarian who likes writing poetry and eschews violence.

A (sorta) real-world version would be like Christian vs un-Christian (as opposed to Satan).

Does that sound workable? (Assuming i made any sense).

[GianniVacca]

You could have (for cultural deity) vs (against cultural deity). And maybe each time you gain 1 point in a given Allegiance, you lose 1 point in the other one.

[Thalaba]

I played in a historical game that did something similar. It wasn't straight up BRP (a hybrid), but the game used the concept of 'Piety' on the one hand and 'Heresy' on the other. The game had a Christian oriented viewpoint, so the Jew in our group used Heresy when praying for his miracles, and everyone else used Piety.

I think the question should be: what do you plan to use the allegience scores for - what effect will high or low 'association' or have? I can see how being a devout member of a god-fearing society will have its benefits, but what are the benefits of being 'against'? Members of a religious groups form (usually mutually exclusive) associations that you can ally yourself to, but atheists usually don't.

[vagabond]

The original concept behind Allegiance was based upon Elric! - Michael Moorcock's Multiverse. That version of Allegiance had 3 "powers" - Law, Chaos, and Balance.

So, you could just set up Allegiance (deity) and not need any opposed Allegiance. Or, pair up certain deities that are the antithesis/immortal enemy of each other.

Ian

[pansophy]

there are many ways to use the Allegiances. In my SciFi setting I use one Allegiance skill for each company to represent the characters standing within that company.

I can fully see to have a fixed number of Gods and to divide 100% between them to represent where a character stands. But there is no need to do that, if these gods do not interact with each other (e.g. come from different religions). So it could be totally fine a character has an Allegiance Skill of 40% with the god 'Ra' while having 80% with 'Zeus'.

If that character also could have 60% with 'Hades' and 40% with 'Poseidon' depends purely how the gods work in your setting - and what your aim is to use the Allegiance skill for.

[Agentorange]

Even within single deity religions there is plenty of room for division. After all look at christianity: protestant, catholic, orthodox and thats just the main groups let alone your various heretics such as the cathars, hussites etc etc.

[Atgxtg]

One option would be to oppose each culture reliion with that of the other cultures. To difiernt cultures could have widely or even slightly different beliefs that result in opposition.

[Agentorange]

Or to use another example from christianity took at the furore over gay priests, civil partnerships etc. In allegiance terms you could have such values as conservative/liberal, reformist/traditional etc etc

[canology]

How badly would it break the mechanism to have there just be a single Allegiance score that can go down (as well as up).

For example, the goddess of the culture in question for my current game values chivalric/gentlemanly behavior, valor and heroism (especially in the face of overwhelming opposition) as well as learning/study.

So in this case the allegiance might go down if a character did something cowardly, or killed captives, etc. Those acts don't really count for allegiance to any of the neighboring religions, and they aren't really appropriate for the equivalent of devil worship in this setting.

[pansophy]

My take is, it would not break it. In fact it's the way I use it, although I have a few Allegiance skills a character might possess (but does not have to). My rules simply simulate their commitment towards a company/employer, and that score can indeed go up and down. And it does not have a Tick Box, because it can only be raised/lowered by actions the character did. It's a bit like the Status skill.

[vagabond]

As pansophy said - not at all.

All Allegiances can easily be handled independently of each other. Again, that is really how it worked in Elric! The three Allegiances worked independently of each other for the most part.

Ian

[canology]

As pansophy said - not at all.

All Allegiances can easily be handled independently of each other. Again, that is really how it worked in Elric! The three Allegiances worked independently of each other for the most part.

Ian

That's good to hear. I'm thinking that this is the correct solution for the type of cultures/religions in my world.

Thanks everyone who replied for your thoughts.