Old Testament Roleplaying

[auyl]

I would agree with some previous posts in that you should be careful calling what God did in the OT as "magic". Remember that the OT specifically condemned the use of "magic". I get that you'd have a hard time in any RPG as defining those works in any other way but maybe renaming them "miracles" like in RQ6 would avert some disagreement.

[Moonowl67]

This is a very brave project, and I'd love to see the results.  I'd focus on trying to capture the differences in cultures; the professions and skills available, and something about the type of technology that can be found.  To evoke a nice Old Testament feel, magic of course, will be very important.  To keep the story (the game) interesting, be cautious about making one form of magic more powerful than the others.  You may have a personal stake in one faith or the other, but that doesn't matter here (I'm not inferring that you do, but some of the comments seem to want you to).  If I were running this campaign, I'd be strongly attracted to the Enlightened Magic rules, or something similar to that system, but that would only be my own take on the subject.  The important thing to remember is that you are the narrator and, to keep the story strong, you shouldn't come down on one side or the other.  Remember the Rifts RPG?  As messy as it was for a system the setting had some real nuggets, mostly because Siembieda followed his own advice - (to paraphrase) always try to make the villain in right in some way.  I find that it makes the story juicy.

 

Wouldn't it be interesting to see this setting from the pagan point of view, and that there God of the Israelites as the powerful force who's minions seem to be dangerous to face, where you have very little chance succeeding against some of them, and when their God acts, it brings certain doom.  Hmm, another setting like that Calls to mind - one which is well-known to those who Love this Craft; the RPG . . .    ;-)

[seneschal]

"Wouldn't it be interesting to see this setting from the pagan point of view, and that there God of the Israelites as the powerful force who's minions seem to be dangerous to face, where you have very little chance succeeding against some of them, and when their God acts, it brings certain doom.  Hmm, another setting like that Calls to mind - one which is well-known to those who Love this Craft; the RPG . . .    ;-)"

 

The Old Testament sort of supports this style of play.  While the Hebrews under Joshua did eliminate some culture groups and settle in the Promised Land, they never did conquer the whole enchilada as they had been instructed to by God, nor did they wipe out all the pagan peoples dwelling there -- which is why we get the multicultural patchwork seen in Judges onward.  The Israelis weren't an unstoppable force; they repeatedly disobeyed God and/or were seduced by the competing lifestyles around them.  After getting clobbered by one or more neighbors for decades, they'd eventually return to the faith of their fathers, and that's when God would bail them out.  But after Joshua, He wouldn't completely destroy their enemies.  They had to stay faithful or be at the doubtful mercies of whatever rising culture group was kicking butt at the time.

[p_clapham]

I was going to go with the idea that the gods are on more or less even footing, it's just the Bible was written by the winners, and they portray their god as all powerful, above even the other gods.  I may try to include pagan points of view into the supplement, at the very least I'm going to include rules that allow you to make foreign miracle workers/ sorcerers.

 

This project is going to be revised at a later date.  I decided to make the class project more inclusive, and appealing to the professor I'm instead doing a Old Testament of the Flux card game.