Why prayer is not "magic"

I know it's just semantics, and so this should not be taken as a serious argument against MJ or Multiverser, but I was wondering about some things, and wishing to explain some things. Get your salt shakers ready.

The problem that I have with prayer being called magic is that, by the rules of Multiverser, you can have a prayer bonused so heavily that it could not possibly fail. Dice are rolled to see how well that prayer worked. However, it's kind of taking the "God Factor" out of it. Kneeling and praying is a bonus, folding hands is a bonus, etc. All of these bonuses can give you over a 100% chance of success. However, I don't care how well you pray, sometimes God just isn't answering. I've prayed for my psychosis to go away a multitude of times. If nothing else, I should have heavy bonuses for persistence. Surely one of these prayers would have made the "dice roll" However, I'm STILL PSYCHOTIC!!!! Rolling the dice and calling a prayer magic is taking God out of the equation, at least in my mind. I know that MJ is a professing Christian, but surely he must have seen this when he wrote the rulebook. I can live with calling prayers magical for the purpose of the game, like I said, that's just semantics, but it still bugs me the way it is handled.

I think everyone here can agree that The Force in Star Wars is totally made up. However, if I claimed Jedi as my religion, and prayed to The Force, by Multiverser rules, it could be bonused to the point of total success. How in the heck can a made up thing answer a prayer? Maybe this is just a bunch of random ramblings, but it was on my mind. Any thoughts?

Also, why are the bonuses given for the "ritual" of prayer? I mean Jim Jones surely prayed on his hands and knees to God, but he still killed 900 followers. How does the act bonus it? I personally believe that it's the condition of your heart that shows the power of your prayer, not the condition of your knees on the floor, or the condition of whether or not your hands are folded.

Or how about this one. You fall into a fast-moving river. It's taking every bit of strength that you have just to keep afloat and not drown. You silently pray "Please God get me out of this." Probably the single most sincere, heartfelt prayer you have ever made in your life. Ah, but you didn't kneel down, so it's not bonused. Ah, and you didn't fold your hands, so it's not bonused. Ah and you only prayed for 5 seconds, so it's in fact penalized. The single most sincere prayer you ever make in your life is penalized because you were incapable of following the "ritual" of it. Tell me, how is that in any way going with God? Again, this is in no way a serious attack against MJ or the Multiverser game system, I'm just wondering about it.

The ritual is a focus for the will of the "spellcaster." If you're praying the "single most sincere, heartfelt prayer you have ever made in your life," then at the GM's discretion, they can sit-mod it as they see fit. But ultimately, it's just a game. It isn't and it can't be a wholly perfect representation of every minute detail of the world.

But, John, let me say a few things outside the subject of this thread.

1. You can be very forceful in your statements, to the point of sounding accusatory. I know that you don't intend that, but when you say/write things, it always feels like the emotional volume is at eleven. You need to turn down the rhetorical volume nob just a little.

2. You tend to skip over details. Sometimes it's good to see the big picture, but you're often down the path of your reasoning, when you missed a key juncture a hundred yards or so behind you.

I've personally made those mistakes myself, with very painful results, so I can say from some personal experience that patience in how you reason and speak can go a long way toward avoiding disastrous results.

I can totally see where A1Nut is coming from on this. On the one hand, I agree with him completely that the dice take the God factor out of it. Sometimes the universe is just not with you on it. I can burn all the incense I want, chant and sing with six of my friends and dance around a fire, but sometimes it just doesn't happen, and I have to trust that the gods know something I don't (it's what they're there for, after all, no?). Other times I can give a really halfassed prayer and, wonder of wonders, it happens just like I wanted. Sometimes the universe favors you even when that leaves you all "wtf?"

On the other hand (perhaps a minor sidenote), as a Pagan I have to semantically disagree with the idea that prayer and magic are not the same thing. At least when referring to ritual magic... they're the same. What you call the deity you call upon, and whether or not you acknowledge the existence of other deities, the trappings, the form, the intent, the purpose, are all the same. I'm especially struck by this same-ness whenever I have occasion to go to a Catholic mass - it's almost the same ritual.

David, I have always been of the belief that brutal honesty solves problems a lot faster than tact and beating around the bush. Of course, I don't very many friends, so that theory might be a load of BS.

This wasn't an attack on the game, or even really anything wrong, just kind of a problem I have with it. I just felt like complaining or something, whatever you call it.

O.K., let's tackle some of these points.

...by the rules of Multiverser, you can have a prayer bonused so heavily that it could not possibly fail.

Well, sort of. Remember, the more you want the prayer to do, the less your chance that it will succeed. Further, few players really are aware of just how much bonus they get for which "ritual" choices.

We're looking at a game here, and we have the complication that it is possible within the game for a character to ask God to do something, and there is no limit on what the character might ask. Does God do what has been asked? There aren't a lot of possible answers; here are those I can see:

• No, never--God does not answer prayers within the game world. I have a lot of trouble with this, because I believe that God does answer prayers, and even if I did not believe that, I'm committed to a game in which everything is possible, and that includes that God might answer prayers.
• Yes, always--God answers every prayer that is prayed, exactly when as where and how requested. Well, that does not seem very realistic to me. Also, it would take most of the fun out of the game, if every player could make anything happen that he wanted simply by saying that he asks God to do it. Beyond that, what happens when players pray for opposing results? You may have heard the story of the three people who found an old lamp in the back of an antique store--two employees and their boss. As they polished up the lamp, the djinni appeared. "I will give each of you one wish," he says. "What do you want?" The girl of the group was terribly excited, and said, "I want to be on a beach in Hawaii with an unending supply of Frozen Margaritas." "Granted," says the djinni, and she vanishes. "I'll go next," says the other employee. "I like that wish, but I want to be on a beach in the Virgin Islands, with an unending supply of Whiskey Sours." "Granted," says the djinni, and the an also vanishes, leaving the boss alone. "And what do you want?" the djinni asks. The boss answers, "I want both of them back to work immediately after lunch." Obviously, if people want different things, the referee is stuck with the problem of deciding what God does for whom, and how He manages to answer all of them.
• Yes, but you have to pay for the answers. This in game design is called a currency system--you have points of some sort which you can spend to buy outcomes you want. Maybe the points are strictly limited, that you can get one prayer answered per day. Maybe you can earn points, by approved character actions. I have trouble with this because it's works theology, that is, God is doing for you because you are good and do something for him. It also becomes a numbers game, whether the referee can exhaust all the points available to the player and so force him to rely on something other than prayer. It's an impossible balancing act.
• It depends on factors unknown to anyone, and thus is determined randomly--draw card, flip coin, roll dice. Of course, God does not play dice; he does not make these decisions randomly. On the other hand, neither the player nor the referee really wants to be in the position of deciding what God will or will not do. Letting the dice decide means we can get the feeling that no one knew what the decision would be. It's not perfect, but since I really couldn't tell the referee to ask God what He would do in this situation, I let the dice decide.

You can sometimes build a prayer so heavily bonused it cannot fail; but I think if you asked Graeme and Eric, they would tell you that sometimes they thought they'd built solid magic rituals only to find there were still heavy penalties on what they were attempting, while at other times they tossed together quick spells and found they had tapped into significant levels of power. You can't really know how much ritual makes the difference for a particular intention.

Also, I notice that Peter and Paul often performed miracles without any doubt that they were going to succeed; Elijah, too, called fire from heaven repeatedly, as if it were as simple as asking for a refill of his coffee. For some people in some situations there is no doubt. I want that to be possible; I don't want it to be simple for everyone.

I've prayed for my psychosis to go away a multitude of times. If nothing else, I should have heavy bonuses for persistence. Surely one of these prayers would have made the "dice roll" However, I'm STILL PSYCHOTIC!!!!

You overlook the possibility that curing psychosis might be above the bias level of this world. I make no pretenses at knowing what is possible in this world; I didn't design it.

It is entirely possible to have a string of bad rolls; that would simulate your experience. Of course, in reality God is able to make those decisions. In the game, the only way He can make those decisions, if He is genuinely interested in the outcomes for fictional characters, is to manipulate the dice.

Rolling the dice and calling a prayer magic is taking God out of the equation, at least in my mind.

These are two completely different things. I can call prayer magic and use a completely different system for it, such as the aforementioned currency system (some very popular games do). I can call prayer prayer and still use dice for whether God answers. Calling prayer "magic" is simply using the word "magic" in a perfectly correct fashion to which some linguistically ignorant people object: using supernatural means to impact natural circumstances is magic, by definition. Using dice instead of currency or fiat (someone decides based on what he wants to have happen) is simply a mechanics decision.

As to the Force, I'm pretty settled that it's a psionic, not magical, concept. However, I understand your argument--how can a fictional concept save you. It can't; in fact, nothing in the game can save you; it can only save your fictional character. Given that we are talking about the fictional version of you, we then are also talking about fictional prayers, fictional forces, and fictional gods.

I had to wrestle with this quite a bit in writing the novels. After all, if I ask myself what The God would do in answer to the prayers of a fictional character, I'm asking some very dangerous questions. Does The Real God love my fictional characters, in the same way He loves real people? I find that difficult even to discuss. The best I can say is that within the fiction, the fictional being who is the reflection within the fiction of The Real God treats the fictional characters as The Real God treats real people, or at least as I envision this. I might be wrong, and this, too, concerns me. After all, I do not wish to tell lies about God, yet once I have decided to write fiction I must tell lies about God in one way or another. I can lie and say that God saved fictional characters whom He did not save because they are fictional, or I can lie and suggest that God does not matter to the fictional characters because He does not exist for those fictional character, when in fact He exists and so must exist for everything, real and imaginary.

Using the dice, for me, puts God into the equation.

Or how about this one. You fall into a fast-moving river. It's taking every bit of strength that you have just to keep afloat and not drown. You silently pray "Please God get me out of this."

And then you drown, awaken in the afterlife, and it appears that indeed you are "out of this" completely. In one sense, that's a prayer God cannot fail to answer, because no matter what happens you will not spend eternity in that fast-moving river.

You are correct that Multiverser treats that as a prayer unlikely to be answered; so, I think, do I. Now, part of that is lack of context. If you were a person of apostolic levels of faith who was at this moment undertaking a mission assigned to you personally by God, those would all be bonuses that would increase the probability that He would answer. If on the other hand you are simply some schmuck who has rejected God at every turn and now is hoping that despite your complete disregard of Him in every way He will let you continue to live your miserable selfish life, I don't think how sincere this prayer is will much matter.

Turning from John to Harry:

On the one hand, I agree with him completely that the dice take the God factor out of it. Sometimes the universe is just not with you on it.

This actually is a positive point for the use of dice. It's not usually the case that anyone has a one hundred percent chance of success, or no chance at all, at least on things they've done before but are not expert at. Someone has said, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that's the way to bet." If two characters went head to head, and one had a 90% chance of success and the other a 10% chance of success, it is still possible that the one with the 10% chance of success would produce the higher successful roll. You might do everything you can envision to bonus your chance of success and still fail; you might toss off something that even you don't think should work and get a success from it. That's one of the big reasons I like dice in my magic systems--nothing is guaranteed.

--M. J. Young

David, I have always been of the belief that brutal honesty solves problems a lot faster than tact and beating around the bush.

Avoiding the truth is not the same as using respect in delivering it. Tact and manners are about respect for the other person. If I'm a guest in a person's home, I show manners when I eat, because it shows respect for them. It doesn't mean that I avoid eating the meal.

I critiqued your behavior, but without being blunt, yet I said what I set out to say. And you understood what I said. And consider the word <i>blunt</i>; to be without precision or detail. Thoughtfulness and deliberation in one's words can strike at the heart of the matter far more precisely than a blanket statement or forceful declaration. Further, it eases the person into your point of view, making them less defensive, and far more likely to listen.

Tact is also about taking a position of humility. If I'm in the wrong, allowing room for response, more than just defensiveness, allows for my error to be corrected. If I just verbally bludgeon my way through a discussion, it's likely that no one is going to want to talk to me, and I end up persisting in the error I began with.

And respect is not always about being Mr. Sensitive. Sometimes it is about choosing what to respond to. When I debate, I try and focus my responses to argument and not the arguer, as heated discussions can slide into name-calling quite easily. It is sometimes difficult for me, because I have a large ego and penchant for being snarky, joined with a particular talent for it, in my oh so humble opinion :-)

And sometimes respect is simply about adding a little humor, allowing the person to feel at ease in the connection of friendship, despite the what might be a harsh criticism.

I say this, having made those mistakes myself, and paying them.

An Atheist was fishing on Loch Ness. Suddenly, Nessie came up from underneath his boat, flipped it over, and threw him into the air. Nessie then sat underneath and waited for the Atheist to fall into its open mouth. The Atheist screamed "Please God help me!!" All of a sudden, time froze. Nessie froze in place, and the Atheist hung in midair. The sky parted, and God looked down at the Atheist and said "I thought you didn't believe in Me." The Atheist looked up and said "Come on, give me a break will you? Ten minutes ago, I didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster."

It seemed appropriate, for some reason.

And David. I see your point.