Harry has come up with a fascinating notion for a spell component: the promise of a sacrifice to be made later. His particular sacrifice is defined as the value in cash or fungible goods of a single night's local lodging, but the essential element for this discussion is that it is a sacrificed promised for some future moment in exchange for the answer to a prayer immediately.
It is already agreed that once he has made the promise, he thereafter begins accruing penalties on future spells until he satisfies the promise.
There is one question that has to be answered, though. If he does not receive what he requests, does he still owe what he promised?
My inclination is to say yes, he does; but I think the average person would say no, he doesn't, that if he promised to pay Tuesday for a hamburger today and he does not get the hamburger today he owes nothing on Tuesday. That suggests that the bargain with the gods is a contract, a payment made for a result--and I think if I put it in those terms, even Harry is likely to agree with me that it should not be a contract, that the sacrifice is promised as a token of respect and gratitude and the petition raised as a request for kindness, and that it is not a contract of this for that, but a promise of a gift attached to a request for a gift in return which might not be granted.
I note, too, that were there no delay in the sacrifice, the sacrificial object would be destroyed whether or not the request were granted. The promise of a sacrifice is already worth less than the sacrifice itself (a bird in the hand, as they say); but a sacrifice conditionally promised is worth less yet, to my mind, as it is not offered freely but as a bargaining tool.
What does everyone think?
--M. J. Young
His particular sacrifice is defined as the value in cash or fungible goods of a single night's local lodging
So he's trying to pay a god with silver or gold to do him a favor? What good is money to a god? In my world, I'm trying to think of something similar to get an angel to do me a huge favor, but what could I possibly offer an angel of God?
While I do see your point, that he should have to pay whether or not he gets what he requested, that's kind of putting a lot of faith in the god. The god could just arbitrarily decide not to do it, but Osevens still has to pay. (Well, the god COULD do that!!!)
(Doing Therapy)
It seems like the precise god may be the deciding factor between whether payment has to occur or not. Some religions do involve explicit contracts where a specific sacrifice gains a specific service whenever it is performed, such as the Aztec blood sacrifice to insure that the Sun rises. I'd expect those gods to treat promises of future sacrifices as conditional agreements contingent on the prayer being granted.
I do agree that conditional sacrifices should be worth less than non-conditional ones, even for gods that would seem likely to accept conditional ones.
Another fairly important question: What happens if the verser makes a promise to sacrifice something they can access, then verse out and end up not bringing it along or being able to find a replacement? It seems to risk accruing penalties until the verser cannot cast any divine magic spells. Now, it is fairly easy to just not place the verser in that situation, but that does limit the viable worlds to send the verser to somewhat.
So he's trying to pay a god with silver or gold to do him a favor? What good is money to a god? In my world, I'm trying to think of something similar to get an angel to do me a huge favor, but what could I possibly offer an angel of God?
Depends on the god. When part of a bull is sacrificed to Zeus, he gets beef for dinner.
Its something of 'its the thought that counts' for some gods.
Yeah, the power from sacrifices comes from the fact that you are giving up something that has intrinsic or extrinsic value to you, not the gods, or something that is of power. It's a lot more symbolic than practical.
Also, then I have a question; when you have ritual components of a spell, are the components consumed if the spell fails? If yes, then I can see you still accruing the penalties and having to pay the price for the spell. If not, then there might be some more wiggle room. However, if the question is "I asked for an apple and you gave me an orange" then I still think you have to pay the price. Whether or not you get specifically what you asked for doesn't change the fact that the god has done you a favor, and unless the end result is drastically different ("I asked for a spaceship and you gave me a toy model") I think the caster still has to pay.
Another fairly important question: What happens if the verser makes a promise to sacrifice something they can access, then verse out and end up not bringing it along or being able to find a replacement?
Tell the god to go back to that universe and get it themselves?
If we think of it as a contract, then it follows that the verser will suffer increasing penalties until they have paid the 'toll', OR perhaps be cut off completely until the toll is paid, depending on the god. If we think of it a sort of quid pro quo, a favor for a favor, it would be a less drastic version of the above. If we think of it as a gesture of respect from a destitute servant, a "I don't have this now, but I'll give you some as soon as I find it", I would give a small bonus, and not give the bonus for the spell again until the debt is paid.
If the sacrifice is contingent on skill success, I would give no bonus at all. At that point, it's little more than a "thank you," and I should think a good supplicant would do that anyway.
And like Graham says, if you asked for an apple and got an orange (as might happen in a botch scenario), you'd still expect to need to make the sacrifice. If you have to pay on a botch, I'd want you to pay on a failure, too.
I would say that this is not a matter of a contract, and that the sacrifice is due whether the spell goes off or not, exactly as if there were no delay.
It's galling to me personally, as Asatru says that prayers basically are contracts with the gods, but from a game mechanic standpoint I can see why that approach is a bit unbalancing.
So... unfortunately I suppose that means I could see it equally well either way, at least in my case.
As Graham has said, the point of the sacrifice is not that the god benefits from the gift but that you surrendered something willingly.So he's trying to pay a god with silver or gold to do him a favor? What good is money to a god?
It's exactly like people who pray and make promises to go to church or stop doing something they think God doesn't want them to do or to start doing something they think He does want them to do. I don't think much of those bargaining prayers, but they illustrate the principle of sacrifice: from the petitioner's perspective, he is offering something to God (or a god) to appease and appeal for something in return.
There's a story told about a guy who was going to be late for an appointment if he didn't find a parking space fast. The entire block was filled, and he'd been around it twice. Finally he says, "God, I'm really in trouble here; I've got to be on time for this appointment. If you'll get me a parking space, I'll be sure to give you half of my next paycheck and attend church ever weekend next month." Suddenly a car pulls away from the curve right in front of him, exactly in front of the door of the building he's trying to get to. So he says, "Never mind, Lord, I just found one myself."
And to some degree we're trying to avoid that; but we're also trying to avoid giving someone credit for a price they never paid.
It seems like the precise god may be the deciding factor between whether payment has to occur or not.
That can't be the direct answer, though; that is, it can't be that a different rule applies to one religion than to another as far as the value of promised sacrifices.
However, I can see that it can be an indirect answer. That is, the expectations of the user are paramount here. If the user believes that having made the promise he must fulfill his bargain even if his prayer is not answered, then his sacrifice is worth more than that of a person who believes that his obligation to make the sacrifice is contingent upon the prayer having been answered. (That opens the complication of whether the character necessarily knows that his prayer has been answered, as our parking space example illustrates, but that's a problem for the god to inflict on the character.)
That aspect of expectations plays a deep role in all this. After all, I don't happen to think that The God is at all impressed by our promises to be good or go to church or give more money as a bargaining chip (He is impressed by them as expressions of gratitude, which is an entirely different aspect, as Scott observes). However, if a player character believes that he can bargain with God in this manner, his belief that he is offering God something of value (making a sacrifice) counts, whether it fits my Christian theology or not.
What happens if the verser makes a promise to sacrifice something they can access, then verse out and end up not bringing it along or being able to find a replacement?
My immediate inclination is that the character is a fool.
However, I can imagine it happening. I would suggest that such a character find a priest or other leader of his faith to whom he can explain the problem, and hope that the priest can discover from the god what solutions are viable. It may be that if I promised to give a certain magic item I own to my god and it is destroyed in my final battle or I verse out and arrive without it, the god might regard that as a sacrifice perhaps grudgingly made. It might be that an alternative form of atonement can be made by giving something the god considers to be of equal value plus interest. On the other hand, if I promised to sacrifice something that was not mine, with the intention that I was going to make it mine (get me through this, and I'll steal the crown jewels and deliver them to the temple at Memphis) that raises a lot of flags already, and I'm not sure I would feel sorry for a player whose character made that kind of bargain and "died" before he could fulfill it.
I have a question; when you have ritual components of a spell, are the components consumed if the spell fails?
Ah, there's a tricky one.
In a lot of cases, the "destruction" of the material components is integral to the casting of the spell in a mechanical way--I'm going to smash this gemstone with a hammer, pour the wine onto the dirt, burn the flesh on the altar, use the leaves and berries to make the ink with which I write the letters, drink the concoction, et cetera. What happens is that we "gloss" this in a lot of instances--Harry will use ten emeralds which will be "destroyed in the casting" by some means not mentioned such that he can never use them in any way again. I usually assume that they turn to dust or evaporate or some such thing--and I usually assume that they do so whether or not the petition is answered, because "destroyed in the casting" means that they are destroyed whether or not the spell succeeds. I waffle on this slightly, though--if you attempt to cast a spell in which the components are "destroyed" in some way that is not specified, and the spell itself is biased out, I probably won't destroy the components because no magic of that sort can work at all. That's a bit unfair, a bit unbalancing, and I might not be consistent with it; but on the other hand, if a possible spell fails and you used components that you were counting on destroying, I won't let you get away with using one spell to effect another--for example, if your intention> is to destroy a particular gemstone that belongs to the local ruler, and you get your hands on the gemstone and decide that the easy way to destroy it is to use it as the material component in your remove fatigue spell, if the spell fails I won't destroy the gem (because I can see through that ruse), although if the spell succeeds I will. (If you've gotten possession of the gem, you can use it for the spell, if you are actually casting the spell.) This prevents you from creating a spell with very little chance of success simply to use it to destroy valuable objects.
I've also sometimes asked players how they intend for their material components to be destroyed, but generally however it is, the components are destroyed even if the spell fails, although I will make an exception based on relative failure--for example, the other day John's summoning spell failed because he was interrupted, but it was never rolled (it was a GE roll that had to be good for him to have time to cast). If material components had been involved in that and he did not have to destroy them himself, I probably would have left them intact. Similarly, if the roll is bad enough that the magic didn't even begin to approach the possibility of working, I might leave the components.
So it's not a consistent rule, but generally yes, components destroyed in the casting are destroyed in the failure.
Thanks for the input; I owe Harry an answer, but I think I've got one now.
--M. J. Young