The Religious Side

[Elvish_Pillager]

(there is nothing like this that benefits lawful units, though).

Mages of Light do.

[Dacyn]

Responding to Jetryl's long post:
Priests should not be in the game, because, as you said, it would not make sense for them to be allowed to attack anyone.
White Mages can be thought of as Wesnothian priests, but that doesn't mean they are. They are just the mages of light and health, IMO. I don't see how this gives them "the power of a priest".
And Wesnoth is not supposed to be realistic. Just because real religions have an impact on society does not mean they should in Wesnoth. Actually, IMO the reason religions should not be in Wesnoth is that they still impact society; I am contrasting this to something like swords, which are never used in battle anymore. (And other things like elves/undead never existed, so they can't impact modern society). The point is that Wesnoth is supposed to be fantasy, and I don't think you want to claim that religions are fantasies.

Personally, I think we should change them to reflect what they really affect:

Lawful = Diurnal
Neutral = Neutral
Chaotic = Nocturnal

should this go in the FPI? How many times has it been suggested?

[Elvish_Pillager]

Your logic fails to explain why there are humans in Wesnoth.

[turin]

Your logic fails to explain why there are humans in Wesnoth.

there are humans using swords in wesnoth. there are not in real life. If we were to add priests/monks into wesnoth, they would be very similar to how priests/monks are in real life. this is not a Good Thing (tm).

[Elvish_Pillager]

There are no priests in real life who cast holy damaging spells at enemies.

[turin]

There are no priests in real life who cast holy damaging spells at enemies.

Right, which is why its OK to have white mages. It wouldn't really be OK to have a martial arts monk, though, because people might still do that. same with just having a healing monk unit.

[Dacyn]

Your logic fails to explain why there are humans in Wesnoth.

Good point...
Wesnothian humans are just generic humans. I am not sure how you would have a generic religion...
The idea of fantasy is to put yourself in an unreal setting. Of course this requires two things: you, and an unreal setting. It might be even more unreal if you were not represented by what you actually are, but obviously the designers were not thinking like that when they created humans.

And the other problem is deciding which religion to use. Not all religions condemn violence. And some people are atheists, they would consider it unrealistic, and maybe even unfair, if priests are given powers in Wesnoth.

IMO religions are not really needed from a gameplay perspective, so I just don't see why they should be added to Wesnoth.

[Elvish_Pillager]

Your logic fails to explain why there are humans in Wesnoth.

Good point...
Wesnothian humans are just generic humans. I am not sure how you would have a generic religion...
The idea of fantasy is to put yourself in an unreal setting. Of course this requires two things: you, and an unreal setting. It might be even more unreal if you were not represented by what you actually are, but obviously the designers were not thinking like that when they created humans.

And the other problem is deciding which religion to use. Not all religions condemn violence. And some people are atheists, they would consider it unrealistic-

Hey, wait a minute! First you say fantasy, then you say things could be considered unrealistic!

[Jetrel]

Wesnothian humans are just generic humans. I am not sure how you would have a generic religion...
The idea of fantasy is to put yourself in an unreal setting. Of course this requires two things: you, and an unreal setting. It might be even more unreal if you were not represented by what you actually are, but obviously the designers were not thinking like that when they created humans.

yeah, that's a perfect recipe for bad fantasy...

The idea of good fantasy is to make the setting as realistic as possible, bringing in unreal elements only to illustrate a point that can't be hashed out any other way. Tolkien did not create all those races because they "looked cool," no, he created them to further a point he was trying to make with his story.

Thousands of other idiotic fantasy writers try to copy the form of his works without copying the meaning, which is why books like Sword of Shanarra suck despite all the technical quality imposed by the author. There's nothing wrong with it, except that all that fantasy doesn't have a purpose, which makes it frivolous and silly, instead of moving and beautiful.

This is just a game, but keep the above in mind. Wesnoth is supposed to be quaint, and getting to unreal makes it less quaint and more bizarre.


Even tolkien had God, under the name Illuvatar, in his stories. The trick is to not get into the details. In tolkien's books, no one argued about religion, or anything. No one discussed it. It was simply assumed by the elves and more civilized men that Illuvatar was out there somewhere, just like there were stars in the sky.

And he gave them (much more than a mere) counter to creeps like sauron and melkor, by having the Valar and Maiar (hint - Gandalf) there. Gandalf was no human. He could probably be described as a minor angel; he was only human in form. Besides the point, this is where all his powers came from.

There are no priests in real life who cast holy damaging spells at enemies.

Yeah, which is why I suggested the white mage not having that ability, since most people think of him as a priest anyways. You can't stop people from thinking that - it's natural. What the hell else is a guy in white robes supposed to be, anyways?

Of course, you then say "A mage of light and healing!" Except, that was something that just got made up for wesnoth, and has no parallel in the real world, which is why people don't think of it and also why many people when given that reasoning balk at it, like me. You want fantasy to parallel the real world, or you end up with garbage like dragonlance, possibly the worst series of books ever printed on paper.

The way we make this fantasy is by making the priests into their ideal - look at the clerics of northshire abbey in Warcraft I. I loved those guys. Poop on Blizzard for not having them in any later games. You make the priests into a homogeneous group of people who really do act like saints, and who would serve as a decent, if caricatured, example for such things in the real world.

It's okay if you dumb it down into a Mr. Roger's level kid's world (in fact, that can be a very good thing, at times), so long as you don't fundamentally change it from what it is.

[turin]

I don't see anything wrong with having learned men (who can cast spells) also be the priests of the land. Do you remember the Templars? They were an order of monks, but they were definitely warlike. The same can be said about the white mages, except they use magic, not weapons. I really don't see your argument for having mages be worthless (which is, in fact, what making them do almost no damage would do).

[Dacyn]

Okay, there is a difference between "parallel" and "imitate"...
and what I am saying is that Wesnoth does not need to imitate the world.
Wesnoth is not a book. Wesnoth already has a purpose, which is nothing like Tolkien's purpose of creating a story with meaning. Wesnoth's purpose is to be a strategy game. Strategy should not be like real life.
so it is illogical to compare Wesnoth to Sword of Shanarra.

[joshbosh321]

none of this makes sense, there isn't really magic, so obviously there can't really be priests with magic, either. I know people equate white mages with religious figures (well, I don't think of them as Rabbis, but...), but this is a compliment to priests. They are being associated with the characters in Wesnoth best known for goodness, light, and healing.

[Jetrel]

On the flip side, there are many who would argue that there are plenty of priests who "cast damaging spells" at the unworldly. Go watch the exorcist - a lot of people believe in that.

(not really sure what my own stance is, seeing as how I've never been involved with the supernatural. The most that has ever happened to me is the occasional, eerily prophetic premonition, which could easily be explained away).

In fact, there are many who believe that the power of god is the ONLY way to get rid of such things, but that would suck for gameplay.

[Jetrel]

Yeah, I don't really care, I'm just sayin' is all...

If I had my hands in this, the following would happen:

a] holy attacks would lose the ability to harm any units not marked as "evil"
b] the white mages would have three attacks:
a wussy attack with their mace
a not-so-wussy holy attack with their mace (used to counterattack evil melee)
a slightly-stronger-than-it-is-now lightbeam

c] being that white mages would only be useful at_all against undead, since priests shouldn't fight, they would take much less xp to level.

One might argue that the priests would give humans an unfair advantage over undead, but then - they're little different from the necromancers/liches, really. Those cold strikes melt living units.

[Jetrel]

I JUST GOT THE COOLEST IDEA!

You know how the mage of light has the illuminate ability? How's about we give the level-4 ancient lich the Unlight ability?

Same thing, only in reverse. [/b]