Interestingly, although Adam started the thread and I want to address his question, all the bits I pulled out to quote are from Mike.
He wrote,
The game is fun because it's a challenge and you won't always win.
At the risk of offending someone with references to game theory, this is a very gamist response: I want to be up to the challenge, and I won't always win, but if I did that would suck the fun out of it when I realized I couldn't lose.
One of the reasons Oak's (he is one of the Johns here, but it's easier to call him Oak than John 3 despite the clever Biblical reference of the latter) play style works at least in Sherwood Forest is that he is much more narrativist. He is exploring issues and concerns. He is a Christian who suddenly finds that God is answering his prayers much more powerfully in this world than in any other, and his generous heart has pulled him out of the camp of the Merry Men into touring villages and even Nottingham itself healing the sick. The new phase that was beginning was creating concerns for him, because in this pre-Protestant world he was apt to be listed among the saints, headed for canonization by the Roman church to which he objects--he does not believe that the church ought to be canonizing saints, or that believers should turn to departed saints for help, and yet it seems likely that he will wind up on that list. He has moral tensions to face: do I continue to heal the sick who need healing, or do I withdraw or find some way to get people to stop thinking of me as special?
Thus it is not the challenge of victory and defeat that makes his game interesting, but the moral tension of finding the best course. And because of that, his prayers for guidance have considerably less impact on outcomes than they would in some other game.
It might be similarly said of Nikolaj's game, in which the true tensions are between his proclamation of the Christian gospel against both the traditional Gaian faith and the strongly segregated human/orc world. It has a lot less to do with what he does and a lot more to do with what he thinks and says and chooses.
It is more of a problem in John Cross' play, but in his case he usually knows what he wants to do and uses prayer to empower himself to do it--the summoning of which Mike complains, which I expect to address before I'm done here.
I didn't realize the deity has the option to just not respond, that makes me much more comfortable, although I feel the player may just accuse that of being ref fiat.
You've overstated what Scott said, in a significant way; but it's probably from failing to make the connection he made. That is this: suppose Harry, who is an Odinite in play at least, were to act in a cowardly manner. As he is running from his adversary, he prays for Odin to help him escape. I would say that the odds of Odin, head of the very warlike Norse pantheon trying to prepare warriors for battle against the giants at Ragnorak, looking favorably on such a prayer are pretty low--I'd give that a -50 penalty for certain. Now, if Harry manages to make the roll successfully anyway, Odin chose to take pity on him and did something miraculous--and if the huge sit-mod against success prevents the spell from working, Odin obviously "chose" to ignore him. But let us suppose that he was not so foolish as to ask Odin to help him in his cowardly flight and still managed to get away. The next day he tries to use his magic for something innocuous, such as freshening the milk that's starting to turn. Odin doesn't forget his cowardice as quickly as that, and Harry finds that there's a -20 sit-mod against all his holy magic until he manages to persuade his god that he really isn't a coward and he will show courage, probably by getting out there and doing it without the aid of Odin's magic.
So it's not referee fiat in the sense that the referee simply decides this god isn't going to do that, but only in the sense that the referee has control over the sit-mods and a -50 penalty for gross dereliction of the obligations of the faith is a perfectly reasonable adjustment.
Is it possible for a governing god or powerful entity to directly oppose other gods involvement in their area of influence?
Not, I think, in quite the sense you mean, but in two other sense, yes.
From one point of view, a powerblock is the decision of the ruling supernatural powers of a world that something cannot be done--particularly when it is a powerblock against some type of magic. It has to be expressible as a general rule, and it has to apply to all gods equally--the ruling god cannot say "Nobody can do this except me."
In your example, it would have to be a rule that no one can use magic to "strike down a lion" in whatever sense you meant that. It might be, as with Disney's Aladdin, that it's not possible to kill something with magic except incidentally (that is, you can beat it to death or burn it to death with magical forces, but you can't simply order it to die). But the rule would have to apply to everyone.
The ruling power can also impose sit-mods against certain kinds of magic, making it more difficult for anyone to do that magic in that world. Usually, though, powers impose such sit-mods on their own worshipers. Again, let's take Odin, and some god of healing--oh, let's use Diancecht, because it's easier to spell than any of the other "real" ones. In a world controlled by, say, Zeus, Odin's worshipers are going to have a penalty against healing spells because Odin doesn't like healing spells, say -20. Diancecht's worshipers meanwhile are going to have a +15 bonus on such spells in that same world. Now both go to a world ruled by Odin, and Odin imposes a -20 penalty against all healing spells in his world. Odin worshipers now have a -40 penalty against their healing spells while Diancecht's cumulative penalty is only -5.
And you are right that sometimes one god will avoid taking action to avoid offending another; but that's built into the probability of success. If the roll says it succeeded, then God A has decided to risk offending God B. If the roll says it failed, then it might be because God A didn't want to offend God B.
A character can change religions, and generally can bring his old holy magic skills with him, but he can't do it too often or he'll be marked as fickle and no god will want to answer his prayers (as indicated by increasing sit-mod penalties).
Concerning the summoning question, bias is a significant issue. Summoning spells are level 11, and 11@1 is only the most basic dispels. That means you need a curve of 13 to be able to summon anything at all, and the bias is higher if you want it to fight, higher yet if you want information from it; higher if you expect to have control; higher yet if the one summoned is intelligent. That generally means that powerful summonings only really work in worlds with high mag biases.
John Cross' circumstance is peculiar, since he argued that I had no way to know that the mag bias in Terminator wasn't high simply because no one did anything magical, and I put it to a GE roll and got him a number that allows him to summon his guardian angel. Normally in a world like that I would just say that this is a naturalist materialist world of high technology, and magic is flatlined. I'm not certain why I didn't just do that other than that I didn't want another long protracted argument with John. By contrast, I haven't actually decided whether John Mastick's (John 4) world has any magic or psionics in it, so although I'm working right now with a nearly-modern cops-and-robbers world of low bias, I could bring in real Juju and magic religions in the Louisiana Bayou if I think it's needed. Until the bias matters, I don't have to worry about it.
There's another aspect of spells with 100% chance of success, even in worlds in which they work: relative success usually limits their efficacy.
I'm in combat and I don't like the way it's going, but I have a spell to summon something to fight for me. I cast it; I roll 01. I continue fighting, uncertain whether the summons worked, and then when I'm on my last legs the summoned creature appears, attacks my opponent for one minute, and then runs away. If I had the good sense to heal myself or escape in that minute, it helped; otherwise, I might not be any better off than I was before the creature arrived.
I'm reminded that not too long ago John Cross summoned his guardian angel in the hope that he could act as interpreter between himself and his mother Sarah, and Sarah shot the angel repeatedly until it was dead. Fortunately, angels don't stay dead all that long; unfortunately, I don't think John ever understood that they could be killed even after that happened.
The first time I encountered this "summoning" problem was when I had David Marcoe in Vampire Philadelphia. Every time I tried to toss something at him (and Eric) that would be a significant challenge requiring them to be intelligent and resourceful, he summoned a powerful angelic being to handle it for him. It was rather frustrating in something of the same way that John Cross' summonings are frustrating, and for much the same reason Mike gives: I designed this for you to face, not for you to find someone else run by me to face. I don't want to handle fighting the monster; I want to see how you handle fighting the monster. Summoning a fighter on your behalf is like setting Pong on "Number of Players: 0" and watching the computer play against itself for hours.
However, I managed to find a way to challenge David and indeed to verse him out, by finding enemies smart enough to ambush him. That means if a player is in a world in which summoning of powerful fighters is possible and he uses that power, I have to up the ante and create scenarios within that world that will tax him even with his increased power.
Did I miss anything significant?
--M. J. Young
