Religion in Larp

The Time of Troubles arc iirc, was when AO came and banished the Gods from heaven, making them take on Avatars on the Prime plane. That happened in KR sort of. The Gods walk Arawyn, unable to return to the heavens.

As for the role religion might play in plot, it has an effect already that most are unaware of. The culture should be more prevalent, but that is a player thing. Staff can't reinforce the setting, it's up to us to accept it and flesh it out.

As to plot, there are some FOIG things about the plot that show a Divine influence. Basically, the origins of the Gods and ultimate purpose is a big part of the game now. I want to explore that more, but there is a tendency to only react to plot as it happens.

Bladesworn wrote: My main issue with religion is this...

Atheism: Belief there is/are no god(s).
Agnosticsm: Does not know if there is/are god(s).

I think heavily in a settling like KR, the terms are different:

Atheism: Those beings you call gods aren't 'gods' to be worshiped, but merely a source of power, like the Weave for magic, Science for Alchemy, or Arawyn for Druidics. You don't deny they exist, just that that they should be worshiped.

Agnosticsm: Either a thought that you don't know if the gods should be followed or not OR you don't feel that a church should be supported.

Real world terms of Atheism and Agnosticism don't apply. You have to modify them to suit a setting where the Gods absolutely do exist.

That having been said, it's totally viable to be a Atheist or Agnostic in the KR setting. That us a great example of religious roleplay, by contrast. Your lack of faith in a setting with real supernatural beings can be a source of cool rp. Explore ideals that differ from yours. Be faithful when you, the player, is not or vice versa. I love speaking in character to someone without faith, or not supporting organized religion. The roleplay is challenging, and helps define my character as well as those he speaks with.

As someone who is pagan IRL, it's been fun to play a character to refuses to follow a religion. I was put on the spot in my second game by Aldric when I accidentally got sucked into bar mass when I had to ask a crew mate a question and I hadn't had a chance to actually decide on what rook's beliefs are, so I went with she didn't believe in following the gods. Of course then after I had to go back and sit and think of *why*, in a world where gods walk around, she wouldn't be religious, and went back and worked that into her character after the fact.

I think religion adds a super interesting addition to LARP, especially in a game like this where gods and religions are an active part of plot and being non-religious is an oddity it seems.

Templar Aldric wrote: Continuing then the original topic, sans PvP, I would ask others for thoughts on what kind of roleplay appeals to them within the Religious theme? Or if the idea of religion is something you feel is not your thing and why?

I have to say that as an agnostic and conoisseur of philosophy and the like outside of KR, Religion roleplay is definitely my thing in LARP. Putting myself in shoes where I can entertain thoughts of how things work in a way that is different than what I believe, than what little I know, than what much I think I know, sometimes. That is what I breathe for. My entire time last event, which was supposed to be spent completely separate from religion with an avid athiestic character was completely turned in the direction of Religious Immersion by one encounter.

What KR does great: The fact that an entire event can be spent on a detective search to determine whether not a Ghast that chased you is a God or not, and not having a satisfying answer by the end of it, and still having so much to learn. I saw no end in sight to the religious RP, from entry-level to clergy, and that's why I'm glad that I built a character that would travel up the entire slope. I wanted to relish every moment.

What KR does terribly: On multiple occasions, I have been told that I will be shuffled without any questions asked for pursuing a certain faith we all can name at this point. I really don't even feel comfortable mentioning it out of game, and physically dread the moment I told someone I trusted. Now many people know, because word spreads whether you want it or not, and whether you ask people multiple times not to talk about it or not, and it's become a running gag every time I see my KR friends out of game. How they're going to do it. When they're going to do it.

My character is agnostic right now, and I don't plan them to become clergy or followers of any God for a year AT LEAST, and I've already received an IG threat. Lux hasn't even heard of Malyc, practically!

And it has been ridiculous, really. And this is exactly the reason that there are basically no Malycites in-game. It's so bad that people have made literally identical custom Gods, just to avoid the name Malyc and the detrimental PVP that goes with it.

I think every facet of the game needs to be present for precisely the reasons Dave and others have highlighted: without the so-called "Social PvP," it's just unfulfilling to be on the heavy end of a see-saw. Especially when Malycites are supposed to be the ones rallying the Dark Followers to bring the nasty to Travance. Which has been happening in their absence, sure, but rarely resulting in any fruitful RP or PvP. And I specifically say "fruitful PvP," as there is such a thing, as we see in the PvP thread right now.

Long story short, there should be no reason to kill a character Out-of-Game. There should be no reason to eradicate a faction OOG. Absolutely none. All murderous intent should be 100% IG. It seems obvious, but really! There should be no reason to do anything but generate a character OOG. Because once you make the character, you do what the character knows and wants and nothing about what you know and want. Sure, perhaps you might take a second to figure out if your character can align with what you want to do, and finagle through those thoughts to get away from some RP you're not into. But getting OUT of RP should be the only reason OOG motivation comes into the game, because you should only go as deep as you are comfortable. If you make an OOG decision to get into RP or PvP, then you are, frankly, doing it wrong. Your character was practically possessed for a few seconds and ended up somewhere they normally wouldn't be.

That's just my two cents. That ended up being a lot more volatile than I wanted it to be, and for that, I sincerely apologize. I mean nothing personal to anyone, just as I'm sure they mean nothing personal to me. And sure, I'm not going to change my character trajectory based on what other people have said. But at some point, someone other than me might retire their character early along that trajectory, just to avoid the repercussions people have been so teasing them about. Nobody wants to get to the point in their character trajectory where everyone they meet wants to take all of their tags. There's no point in playing the character at all by that point. May's well just retire the character, rather than sit through 8 hours of death counts, hoping they won't take the next tag, or that someone will have mercy after your last tag is spent.

That's one thing though, KR is a safe place for exploring all sorts of morality, and religious concepts. Where the problem comes is each individual makes choices on how to react or act in regards to their chosen ethics or religion. Meta gaming is already against the rules, and constitutes cheating. But there are grey areas as you point out where things fall through the cracks. It's up to the players to police themselves, through education, in the case of newer players, or by getting marshals involved to mediate for others. The game is not so much the issue as is the culture of the game and we are all responsible for that.

This issue is the reason I wanted to start this thread. We as players need to be comfortable enough to be able to handle the opposition of religion, ethics or simply styles of rp, and that starts with each individual. At the end of the event we are all friends and that is not suspended during the game. We need to act like it.