Never Has the Tao Been More Tao

Following yesterday's post about shamanism and animism, I followed up with a game version of mantraism, on the wiki.  Mantras are the basis for most modern Asian religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and so on - and believe me, that is a long, deep rabbit hole that the average reader does not want to go down.  Eastern theology gives headaches to people who spend their lives studying it.

Still, I want to write about my work on mantraism (which I'll refer to without posting here), since I found it a brain bender for about eight hours yesterday.  I'll write about the trials and about some of the serendipity that arose from the content.

Job one was to make the content as simple as possible.  It would do no good to attempt an accurate representation of the use of mantras for game play, first because I don't want to spend the next ten years sussing it out and second because if I did it wouldn't be any good to players who didn't want to spend a year learning how to play it.  Any game rule has to be something that can be grasped in one or two sessions of explanation - which means throwing out considerable amounts of theology and nuance.  On the whole, that doesn't matter - no one playing D&D is attempting to obtain enlightenment . . . we're not being honest to the source material, we're being honest to the world we're building.  Priorities matter.  Therefore, if something in the content doesn't match up with what a real Buddhist or Jain believe, fuck it.

That said, we do want it to be recognizable as mantraism.  Whenever possible, we want to ascribe the correct definitions to things, even as we simplify them or leave out details that give them more nuance.  Throughout the wiki page, when I describe what something is, such as japa, reincarnation or the paths of accumulation or joining, these are directly from the source material.  I'm not making this stuff up - the reader should feel free to do their own research.

The value in adapting source material is that we can exploit the originality of that material without having to invent something from whole cloth - and at the same time, people familiar with the material can identify touchstones that are familiar and pleasant. The only people likely to be annoyed are true believers - who, I will say, are unlikely to be role-playing.  An actual Buddhist role-playing would be something like a Islamist taking a job painting Mohammed characters on store windows for Ramadan.  This joke will be clearer to those who understand Buddhism.

This is a fine line to walk already - the third element in the mix is that the content must be made practical for gaming.  That is, it must have some kind of effect that players can identify.  Mantraism is different from the religions I posted yesterday because, though it is the primitive form of philosophy that preceded the enlightenment of the east some 2766 years ago (the actual origin is contested - some argue it began with Hinduism and others that it existed for thousands of years before Hinduism) in that mantraism remains a fundamental basis for later religions.  This means that if a player chooses to be a Buddhist in my game (and I've had two of them in the last 8 years), what I write about Mantraism now has to also apply to what the character believes later.

Why does that matter?  Well, to me it matters because I haven't had a strong fundamental basis for how a Buddhist cleric would function.  What would matter to a Buddhist?  How would adventuring fit into the mix and how would the cleric perceive the long game where it came to increasing in power, focus and purpose?  Two days ago, this would have been very hazy and difficult to describe.  After the work I did yesterday, however, I suddenly find it crystal clear.  Right now, I think it would be possible for a player with no comprehension at all about Buddhism to quickly master the principles I've laid out and feel consequentially different from believing in a western-based faith (and most religions in D&D, whether those of the real world are played or not, are based on western polytheism or monotheism).

Note that I keep talking about Buddhism and not Hinduism, which is also mantra based.  That is because my Hinduism rules is yet going to need work.  Buddhism is much more an offshoot of mantraism - and it was mantraism that I outlined yesterday, not full on Buddhism.  That advancement will come later - but for the moment, everything that I've written about mantraism also applies to Buddhism, so in a sense we are talking the same thing.

So, the mantraism page on the wiki describes three basic points: 1)  thoughts empower action; 2) japa enables right thought; and 3) right thought places the individual upon a path that creates character class and produces game abilities.

1) In D&D terms, thoughts empowering action is equivalent to saying that thoughts empower magic. That is what we are talking about, yes?  Mantraism isn't a religion, it is a magical format that has magical effects.  This is the fundamental purpose to having a religion in D&D, that it creates some sort of power that interests the fantasy role-playing motif.  Without a magical effect, religion is utterly useless to the game except as fluff.  We don't need fluff, we need a principle that the players can play - so religion must be a form of magic.

2) Japa is the repetition of mantras.  If you're looking for your keys, you're wandering around the house saying, "Where are they?  Where the fuck are they?  Where are they?  Where are they?" - over and over.  This is a pattern that every human betrays in times of stress and in every culture.  Mantraism recognizes this biological constant and attempts to ritualize it: screaming about the keys helps you find the keys (theoretically), so we only ask that you scream about the keys with these exact words in this exact tonality this number of times.  That is japa.

3) As I proceeded along in my research, I discovered a strange serendipity arising.  The number of mantra repetitions, for instance, being 108 according to the source material.  How curious it was that 108 repetitions would take 15 minutes, when 15 minutes has been established for literally decades as the time it takes for a cleric to relearn a 1st level spell in my very old Vancian-based system!  How interesting it was that I seemed to be establishing a logical basis for the monk character traits as well as a form of non-spellcasting cleric!  How marvelous it was that the actual description of the Buddhist stage of supreme attribute helped define what a monk's abilities ought to be, more accurately that the clumsy telling of the original AD&D handbook.  I'd never heard of the four stages of the Path of Joining until yesterday and yet they fit right into my game system like a glove.

In particular, I enjoyed the meaning behind the Path of Accumulation.  At first, I resisted the description, since I supposed we were talking about some form of religious acquisition - but in fact we are talking about exactly the sort of acquisition that murderhobos in D&D like to do.  Players can be Buddhist and hack-slash lords at the same time, because mantraism and Buddhism begin with admitting that most persons are going to be involved in material accumulation - says so right on the tin.  This puts everyone on the First Path - including non-believers like you and me, who are merely members of the lesser stage.  One has to love an all inclusive religion like this.  EVERYONE is a Buddhist.  So the next time some effete says that we don't 'understand' Buddhism, we can spit right into his face and answer, "I understand fine for someone on the first path."

Nice.

I cut mantraism off at the end of the Path of Joining because I want it to remain primitive (it is designed for tech level 6, some readers will remember).  At a later time, I see that I will have to plunge into Buddhism again, completing a set of rules for the remaining three paths above the second - but later.  I'm resting for now.

Sermonizing

Since I am working on the cleric class, tweaking and adjusting the elements of the class within my game, I find myself faced one more with the question, one that came up before on this blog (not that I can find the post).

What effect does a cleric's preaching have?

There certainly should be an effect.  A cleric preaching to a crowd is a highly symbolic act, one which defines the very nature of clericism - the pronouncement of 'truth,' carrying it to the people so that they may hear the spoken word, this is definitive.  The word is the embodiment of the cleric's religion; the practice of speaking it is an exhibition of bravery and resolution, the statement that say "This I believe, and that belief shall not be hidden!"

Many of us believe things; we secretly hold something to be true, but we dare not say that thing out loud for fear that it will lose us friends, respect, even our jobs or our freedom.  The boss is an idiot.  I do not love my wife.  I wish my best friend would stop going with that bitch/bastard.  When a cleric stands up and says, "I believe in an invisible force that says YOU must live your life differently," this takes guts.  An audience may not like it.  Prostelytizers have been killed before.

So somehow, the power of sermonizing must embody these characteristics.  It must be empowering; it must influence; it must be something practical for the cleric to do, but it should  be something potentially dangerous, too.  It must be useful.  It must be practical.  And while it can be magical, it can't step on pre-existing magic.

For many campaigns, the problem is already solved by the enthrall spell.  When a cleric wishes to sermonize, he or she need only employ this spell:

"Enchants creatures who fail to make save vs. magic. Creatures less than 4 hit dice suffer a –4 penalty to their saving throws. Creatures that are neither human nor demi-human enjoy a +4 modifier to their saving throw.  The cleric’s charisma is temporarily raised to 21. Listeners who fail their save will, in any event, continue to listen so long as the cleric continues speaking."

Somehow, this doesn't suit me.  To begin with, I don't allow my clerics to change their spells from day to day - which is my means of reducing the power of spellcasting (damn, can't find that post either).  Briefly explained, you pick your spells and those are your spells.  No changing.

It's a cheap fix anyway.  People don't get up and walk out of a temple when the priest starts speaking.  It isn't a "saving throw" problem.  The cleric ought to be able to affect everyone, but to a much lesser degree ... so that, in a slightly upgraded manner, people still leave the church or the circle feeling enlightened, invigorated ... and even intrigued with some matter about their lives.

It's difficult to manage a magical effect in D&D that isn't bold and forthright.  Magic missile ... now that is simple.  Bang, hits automatically, causes damage.  No gray areas.  How do you run a magical effect that "enlightens" but does not flat out affect the listener like a suggestion spell?

I've been building a straw man here, because the answer is actually easy.

D&D has so many ways to moderately push the numbers that there's always something that can be done.  Another problem I've been working on has been the 'sage abilities,' which I think I mentioned last week ... but if I forgot, here's a link to what they've been for about three years.

I am enormously unhappy with these - primarily because of the lack of use players have put them to.  The mage in the online campaign, played by 'Lukas' or Oddbit as he is called, has employed his architecture knowledge a fair bit; everyone who has taken "beasts" in the cleric list has definitely made use of that to know more about what's attacking them.  There has been dabbling on a few other topics.  But its not giving the guts I need to make the talents work, and I know that's because they're far too vague.  My fault, not the player's.

So I am working through the lists to make them more concrete, which I know is going to be a year-long job, requiring a lot of brain hemorrages and imaginative effort.  Mostly, I'm looking to enhance these things so that they can be played very simply.  A set % per level chance at success, and very definite results that can be expected, which offer a wide range of talents and abilities - even some magic.

For example, a knowledge of Aesthetics, knowing better how performance and art has the potential to influence, could mean moderately greater effects for some spells (duration, area of effect, range), or an improvement in the use of physical tools ranging from weapons to mountain climbing equipment, or an increase in the value of property and equipment.

Let's break down Metaphysics ... which, if there was ever a topic that seemed impractical for a D&D player, this would seem to be it.  But metaphysics is, after all, a greater comprehension of reality, and how to live within that reality.  So we can presume that an advanced knowledge of "reality" might offer the following special abilities (still limited by a set % chance of success per level of the character):

Perception:  a deeper comprehension of the nature of time enables the player to grasp more deeply its passage, so that if the % is rolled, time can be slowed so that the player is able to experience two rounds where others would only experience one - however, this can only be accomplished for a limited period, so long as the % is rolled and no more than 5 (possibly 10, needs gameplay) 'rounds' per day.

An alternate to the above would be to shorten distances to be crossed by half, so that while time remains the same players are able to step two spaces where they were ordinarily move one.  Another alternate might be that the player could perceive distances visually, so that their vision was magnified 30x (equivalent of binoculars).

Asceticism:  The body's natural functions can be overcome so that the player would be less dependent upon food or sleep, reducing the requirement for either by 50%, with this having no effect upon the player's combat or other abilities, when the % is rolled.

Sustained Life:  The character is able to keep themselves alive even though their body has technically been "killed", to as far as -15 hit points, for a period of 1 to 4 minutes, giving time for the player to be healed by ordinary means, if the % is rolled.

I perceive a lot of differing rules like this, somewhat similar in some ways to the skills that pop up in a lot of games, but based on knowledge and not skill.  In a sense, there's no difference, except that in the above it would also be taken for granted that the player knew just about everything there was to know about metaphysics, to even have a chance at performing these strange abilities.

So back to the sermon.  I think an elegant solution is suggested by the ceremony found in the Unearthed Arcana, that gives a +1 to any roll for an individual when they are first baptized into a religion.  This is a pretty crappy effect for a ceremony like that, but it would be marvelous for a congregation as they left the local temple.  Everyone in the neighborhood gets a +1 modifier to one thing, probably to be used up that day?  Marvelous.

It probably won't mean much to many the gentle reader, but I remember Sundays where the morning was screwed by church ... and the afternoon seemed strangely special afterwards.  I think, subject to certain other conditions (done on holy ground, affecting only believers, that sort of thing) that this would be a great talent to allow a cleric to perform.