Theism and Christianity in RPGs

[Stack of Turtles]

btw, Jesus was definitely born in December, the timing is right there in Luke. I know he probably got over that later, but it's still annoying.

[UltraFan123]

When it comes to how I would handle this topic in an original setting I would make from scratch, I would be mainly taking inspiration from the Abrahamic teaching of "there's only one God" but with a polytheistic twist in the form of giving each sapient race in this fantasy world a different God that created them and thus each race would worship their particular God almost exclusively. So basically, each race - including humans - would say that the God that created them is the "only true God" and wouldn't really care much for the other divinities that didn't create them.

This idea was born from a common fantasy trope I have seen in almost every setting where humans are the only intelligent species that doesn't revere one particular God over others; elves have their pretty-looking archer/warrior/archmage God, the orcs have their savage warlord God, dwarves have their blacksmith God, and even monstrous races have their particular demonic deities exclusive to each of them. Only humans get to choose from a plethora of human-looking Gods that have plenty of differing portfolios and variety of domains.

From what I have seen the only two settings where this isn't the case is Warhammer 40K where humanity has a single God-Emperor, and the lore of Golarion from Pathfinder where Aroden was the God of Humanity before mysteriously dying and leaving humans as spiritual orphans. And even in these two cases, neither the God-Emperor nor Aroden created humanity, they were both originally mortals before ascending to divinity.

[rusty_shackleford]

btw, Jesus was definitely born in December, the timing is right there in Luke. I know he probably got over that later, but it's still annoying.

I was always of the opinion that the specific dates didn't matter, it was the intent of keeping them. So if someone says "that's not when he was born", it doesn't matter in the least to me.

[Stack of Turtles]

btw, Jesus was definitely born in December, the timing is right there in Luke. I know he probably got over that later, but it's still annoying.

I was always of the opinion that the specific dates didn't matter, it was the intent of keeping them. So if someone says "that's not when he was born", it doesn't matter in the least to me.

That's fair, but Luke puts the Annunciation six months into the pregnancy of Elizabeth, which is in turn announced to the father, Zachary, in the Holy of Holies; that means it can only have occurred on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is in late September to early October; six months later is late March to early April; nine months after that (from Annunciation to birth) is late December to early January.

[Vergil]

Me and Jesus are both December babies...

[rusty_shackleford]

-Gary claimed to have truly found Jesus Christ shortly before he died, which was after the fact to all of that. I would love to know what that meant, but I don't. It's not clear whether this involved a full rejection of Arian errors.

Topical. Going through some documents and came across something that failed OCR for obvious reasons, but happened to be related to this topic.

► Show Spoiler

(Graustark issue 200)

I welcome anyone to manually transcribe this, but he does accuse protestants of believing in arian heresies. This was most likely during his JW phase.

---

Claims that Gygax did not "understand" Christianity do not actually seem to be based in reality.

[rusty_shackleford]

Libtards seething.

[maidenhaver]

Outsiders don't get to tell me about my religion.

[Stack of Turtles]

I welcome anyone to manually transcribe this,

GARY GYGAX, 330 Center St., Lake Geneva, Wisc. 53147 (1 Dec. 1969): In the comment you made after my letter in GRAUSTARK (#197) there are two points and I wish to answer both. ^[1] First, you stated that "The Mosaic Law is rather up tight about people who claim to be gods." Certainly that statement is correct. And, in fact, the Greek Scriptures tell us that "there are many gods and many lords" (I Cor. 8:5), so what the Mosaic Law warned against was false gods and those claiming to be God. Who is God? Psalm 83:18 informs us that "...Jehovah, You alone are the most High over all the earth." Also, the American Standard version of the Bible translates Deuteronomy ^[2]6:4 as "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah". While Jesus was a god (or powerful one) he neither was false nor did he claim to be Jehovah God. He recognized Jehovah as his Father, his God, and clearly told his followers that "My father is greater than I." (John 14:28)

((I hadn't realized that the Arian heresy had made such headway among contemporary Protestants.))

The Mosaic law and the other books of the Hebrew Scriptures all called attention to a coming Messiah. There are 332 distinct prophecies therein that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

As to the second point, "at least one of his disciples was a Zealot". I point out that another was a tax collector, and others were fishermen. What Jesus' disciples were formerly is not important; rather it is what they became thereafter that is meaningful. They became Christians.

Today there are relatively few Christians while Christiandom numbers nearly one-third of the world's population in its ranks. It is small wonder that non-Christians confuse the two. In order to clearly tell the difference I recommend that you read any of the literature published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

((I have read two such tracts in the past decade. One of them asserted that a Catholic would be unfit to serve as President of the United States, and the other ^[3] in flat defiance of the obvious facts the kinship of the human race with the rest of the animal kingdom.))

1. a small mark here, the intentionality of which I cannot discern
2. I believe a 4, clearly mistaken, was struck out here
3. this word unfortunately almost completely obscured. I infer it to be 8 letters, ending in 'ed'. I think it may have been 'rejected', though, not knowing the theological positions either of Jehovah's Witnesses or of Watchtower, it might as easily have been 'asserted'.

[rusty_shackleford]

((I have read two such tracts in the past decade. One of them asserted that a Catholic would be unfit to serve as President of the United States, and the other [3] in flat defiance of the obvious facts the kinship of the human race with the rest of the animal kingdom.))

Note that the (( … )) is commentary from the editor. I forgot to add this.

[boot]

i'm gonna be making a game based on Judges 11 in srpg studio buy my game support the faith

[Val the Moofia Boss]

i'm gonna be making a game based on Judges 11 in srpg studio buy my game support the faith

The ousted son being appointed general and leading the kingdom to victory part, or the protagonist making a foolish vow and following through on it rather than asking for it to be rescinded?

[UltraFan123]

i'm gonna be making a game based on Judges 11 in srpg studio buy my game support the faith

The ousted son being appointed general and leading the kingdom to victory part, or the protagonist making a foolish vow and following through on it rather than asking for it to be rescinded?

Why not both? Different POVs usually make for good storytelling opportunities.