... You do know that the Koran says explicitly more than 100 times to kill various people wherever they are found right? If they don't convert, a good Muslim is actually explicitly ordered to kill a non-believer, and a good muslim is actually ordered to kill someone who leaves the faith (I forget the proper term at the moment).


Um... What part of bowing to a temple where a pagan moon deity statue still stands is "Thou shall not bow to any graven image"? This also applies to the Crucifix, in fact...

Now, this is not to mean all Muslims are evil, or all Jews are evil because they don't believe the Messiah has come yet. Not at all. I'm just pointing out what their own religious texts say, and where many are in error for believing something to the contrary.

As Neraph clearly demonstrates in among his delightful attempts to convince us that all religious beliefs but his own are heretical, people tend to believe what they are told to believe by their respective authority figures. So, if one's own particular dogma says "Thou shalt not kill", that is what he will hold to be true. His actions will be guided accordingly. If another dogma says "Thou shalt not murder", then the pursuant behaviour will be different according to the definition of murder.

In the world of Shadowrun, these two different words, "kill" and "murder" would have profoundly different effects on the behaviour of a character to whom religious dogma is important. He would even have to work his way through the niceties of involvement in killing. "Does my action in the Matrix aid and abet the death of guards in the facility? If so, is killing them when they are shooting at my teammates murder?"

kill them all and let Glod sort them out?

Glod the mortician works hard you know.

It's interesting you come to that conclusion, as all I've tried to do is lay out facts, such as: This is what their holy book says, and this is what they do. If those facts make them seem heretical, I assert the simple conclusion that maybe that is because they are in fact being heretical, and that that conclusion is one that you made based only on facts that I have disclosed.


... In Shadowrun.
EDIT: Edited to remain on-topic.

Honestly, a lot of the people out there who profess to be of a certain denomination but do not practice often are being heretical or sinning according to the laws of the faith they claim to adhere to. There's a lot of people out there for whom faith is practically vestigial. They acknowledge they come from a certain background but they do not practice and when push comes to shove they're not even particularly tolerant of many religious practices.

For example, I know plenty of people who claim to be tolerant of other religions (or even of a faith they used to adhere to) yet insist that faith should be held private. In a lot of cases, this is like saying you're fine with black people as long as their skin isn't too dark. For an Evangelical, letting someone live a pagan lifestyle without trying to intervene is tantamount to ignoring the struggles of a drowning man. And yet many people choose to try and ignore the basic idea that some beliefs, personal or not, do in fact conflict with our own beliefs, and this makes people very, very uncomfortable indeed.

QFFT. Quoted for fucking truth.

Thank you for helping voice what point I was trying to make.

In the same vein, many, many people who are Muslim are in fact commiting heresy. The core beliefs they follow are actually the bloodthirsty teachings of people we now know as "Islamic Extremists." These, however, are actually "Islamic Funamentalists," attempting to follow their religious convictions to the best of their ability. It is in fact the massive multitudes who profess Islam is a "religion of peace" who are the "extremists," as these teachings are so radically away from their holy texts it is laughable.

For example, I have an Islamic family living above me in my appartment. My family and I are (if you couldn't figure it out) Christian. The Muslims upstairs are actually commanded to kill my family and myself if we refuse to convert, which we do refuse. They've been living above us for about a year. They are Islam's version of "Sunday Baptists," and in fact, much of the Muslim population are, in the same way that much of the many Christian denomonations (or cults that masquerade as Christianity - I could go on about this but won't here [unless provoked]) are hypocritical.

Again, all I'm saying here is that the most common form of Islam is actually a hypocritical, heretical, false belief, based on their own beliefs. The common form of Islam is, however, completely acceptable to "modern" society, however, and they are now trying to re-write or edit the Koran to saying more politically correct things, in the same way that Mormonism has left its racist teachings in more recent times (they used to teach, very emphatically, that black people were cursed by the mark of Cain and Ham and could not attain the priesthood).

One of my players' characters went Catholic when a dear friend (an NPC) was raped and murdered in the alley next to her house. My games are so cheery!

I'd like to point out as well that being a heretic doesn't mean you can't have deep convictions or avoid hypocrisy. For example, Martin Luther was branded a heretic, but he obviously took his faith very seriously indeed. Whether it is wrong to be a heretic or not is a matter of perspective. So you can be a heretic without necessarily being a hypocrite, but beyond a certain point you're not really in the same group as those who consider you a heretic anymore, and so you get into the land of schisms and tussles over who gets to carry the mantle of the true faith.

For example, I was raised Catholic and it'd be frankly silly of me to insist that this fact doesn't color the way I perceive the world and the way I interpret moral issues and ethics. But I'm essentially an agnostic/atheist/whatever these days and so it would hit me as rather disingenuous to call myself a Catholic. As you can imagine, I think it'd be rather daft to continue to follow an old religion to the letter if you have some real moral misgivings about some of the teachings, so I don't really think it's wrong, per se, to reject ideas. But with that said, that doesn't make me any less of a heretic. I just happen to be fine with this, that's all.

Never mind, Neraph. And sorry. I have made so many rules and interpretation errors today, I think I should shut up and go away. I would be interested in knowing where in the Quran (old, new or otherwise) a Muslim is commanded to kill someone who does not convert to Islam. If you have that info, please share.

I don't think so (i am not a specialist) but i read a bit of the Koran... and the islamic faith seemed like a thinly veiled political defensive tool. It is highly reactionist and merciless, but only if provoked. Since they are in YOUR land, and you are not attacking or converting them you get a second and third chance as "owners of the the scriptum" (like jews too) They will keep you alive and you even get a chance to accept Allah even after you died.... also you have to pay more taxes *g*

Back on topic: With the event of magic there a lot of old and strange new religions coming up... Playing an religious Jedi or a believer of the northern strong gods... is awesome and doesn't really barr them from beeing a murderous runner *g*

I'll track it down.


Actually, I had a Fomori "street sam" mystic adept set up with the character concept of a Grey Knight Terminator that would be totally awsome and fun to play.

This thread has ventured far beyond a hypothetical discussion about religious Shadowrun characters and into that area specifically prohibited by TOS. We will review posts for the above mentioned potential warnings and suspensions. Continue to digress on this path at your own risk.

My apologies. I will endeavor to abide by this in the future.

Same here. Jot me down as having a warning if you want, but I'll consider this post a warning regardless.

Got the message.

In order to properly roleplay a real-world faith in a game, I believe you must actually understand that real-world faith (or as many do take the easy route and roleplay a "stereotypical" member of that faith - but a stereotype is not a good representation of the whole). It was my intention from the start to correct common misconceptions of real-world faiths (which Shadowrun does in fact use) in order to better enrich a player's experience whilst playing a character of said faith. In that way, my conversations made about religions on this thread were solely intended to explain the mechanics of said religions so that a person would have a better grasp of how they work to roleplay them easier. It is the same concept behind explaining how wireless commlink connections would theoretically work (and interestingly, there are huge advancements being made right now to allow cellphones to mesh together in mobile wireless webs) to give a player a better understanding of that aspect of the game.

I repeat: It has been, and remains, my sole intent on this thread to explain the real-world religious faiths that are mentioned in the game of Shadowrun so that any person who decides to play a character of one of the faiths I have discussed will be better equipped to roleplay that character within the bounds of that religion. If you so choose to review some of my posts, I even gave examples of how to act within one of the religions I have discussed that would allow a player to perform "dubious" actions while still being able to justify their actions within their faith.

If this violates the Terms of Service, then I apologize. I do believe, however, that I am still within the Terms of Service, as the point of my posts was designed to help people understand religions so that they may better represent them in the game of Shadowrun. It was never my intent to convict others of their faiths or try and convert people to my faith (in fact, I have remained very vague of my faith to this purpose - there are many, many denomonations of "Christian" out there, and I seriously doubt anyone will be able to guess mine. How could I therefore convert someone to my faith if I do not even say what exactly my faith is?).

He has a point. I'll still be more careful in the future, however.

Religion and politics are my two favorite subjects - and two of the three that will bring people to violence the quickest in a discussion. I also understand the problem with the premise of this thread and avoiding discussion religion. I would love to weigh in on the topics above, biting my keyboard not to.

Sometimes discretion really is the better part of valor.

I feel similarly, but I would like to point out to our credit that nobody was trolling or flaming. Some potentially offensive things were said, but I didn't see a single post with an antagonistic feel to it. I get the feeling you noticed this too, as the thread has not been locked.

It was getting pretty close, though. Generally, whenever an adherent of a particular religion (or none) begins to weigh in with absolute statements regarding the characteristics of a religion not his/her own (or even their own), things tend to go downhill, fast. Religion, after all, is really not about absolutes but about faith, belief, interpretation, and the practice thereof. One word misspoken or misinterpreted is what starts the flame war. As a Religious Studies student, I have seen this happen in nearly every forum, from the classroom to online.

As the person who started this thread (for whatever that's worth), I agree with the admin's ruling on this. I honestly hope that we can continue with this thread, sharing stories of what we have done as players with our characters, and maybe offering advice to other players based on our own religous backgrounds explicitly within the context of the game.

Thanks.

Seconded. I just wanted to point out that this thread lasted much longer without flames breaking out than those of this type typically do.

Indeed. I'm actually kind of impressed by that fact.

On the original topic there's plenty of ways to play religious shadowrunners, just probably hard to play ones that are entirely faithful to their religions tenants. But then, as has been stated, there's plenty of people who are religious without following every rule their religion has laid out.

Neraph and I have a history of amicable sparring over religion on these boards, if it helps you to understand why.

There wouldn't be too much of a problem with playing a religious character, I think. If his convictions would get in the way of doing the things shadowrunners normally do in your games, then they're a Negative Quality - a form of Pacifism for characters whose religion prohibits killing, for example.

In GURPS, you would also have several other disadvantages that could help model strict adherence to a religion. There's several types of Vow (say, Chastity, Poverty, vegetarianism, etc.), as well as the aptly named Disciplines of Faith for rituals you must perform without fail. As for advantages, there's Higher Purpose to represent the strength of your conviction granting you small bonuses occasionally. I'm sure you can adapt something like that for SR.

For some reason now I want to play a human luckbunny who attributes every lucky break to the big man upstairs.

One thing to keep in mind, while playing a religious character in Shadowrun, is that religious dogma is not static, but continues to evolve. Yes, the core scriptures remain the same, but how they are interpreted changes. To use a Shadowrun example, the Catholic church is portrayed as reacting poorly to UGE and the return of magic at first, but later on deciding that metahumans have souls, and that magic is a morally neutral force that some people can tap into. A Budhist, Baptist, or Muslim in Shadowrun will likely be different than one from 2010.

Religion is one of the ways that you can bring to life how a character reacts to various developments such as the return of magic and the rise of bodily augmentations. For instance, maybe you are playing a Shinto adept who believes very strongly in the integrity of the body, who is horrified by all of the people he sees walking around with metal arms and multiple datajacks in their heads. Maybe he is a Christian who has a hermetic view of magic, and finds another Christian who claims to do "miracles" and summon "angels" to be a whacko. Or maybe she is a Wiccan who is having a crisis of faith - how would you feel if you were educated and enlightened about your religion, while your friend Debbie is an airheaded poser, but you can't even light a candle, and Debbie can toss fireballs!

I agree about how religion is just one of many tools used to bring a character to life. Too often I have seen players caricature a character's personal beliefs or other aspects of their character, based not on actual knowledge or research or thinking, but rather a stereotype that they feel the need to play over-the-top as if to say, "SEE! My character is a CHRISTIAN!!!!" (Or Jew or Muslim or Pastafarian or what have you). It is important to note, however, that I get just as rankled when people play military characters incorrectly too.

In all honesty, what prompted me to start this thread was not about religion, but about my 3 of my players wanting to play characters with backgrounds in the UCAS military. Since they all knew that making shit up or (worse) hollywood-ing it is a pet peeve of mine, having been a Marine for 4 years, they took it upon themselves to ask me for help with their backgrounds. They told me what they wanted as their general history, and I helped them research to fill in the details. It was the little things they wanted to know. Quirks in personality, certain slang and phrases, ways of thinking of things. This got me thinking of religion and characters, and how, when I've seen people integrate it subtly and authentically, how it can really flesh out a character and add a lot to the internal monologue of thinking through a character's choices.

So, this got me

I've been kicking around the idea for a blood mage Oni Mystic Adept. There are two clauses in Dunkie's Will (I can never spell his name properly from memory, and I don't care enough about him to look up his name) that give 1,000,000 nY bounties to Blood Mages and Toxic Shaman, so I keep a handful built in case my groups want to go high-risk bounty hunting. The oni I have build was originally an NPC, but would totally be awsome to play.

The Oni was a kanmushi, more specifically, a maho tsukai (obviously). Physical Double Image, Manabolt, Shadow, and some adept abilities to mitigate "Blind Firing", so he drops a large amount of Visibility Penalties, then goes into melee (dual wielding katanas [one is a weapon focus, the other a spellcasting focus] with Two Sword Style) using blind firing to not take the visibility penalties he just made. I think I gave him Sacrifice, and he was working towards getting Invoking to Invoke Blood Spirits (evil kami).

Character concept of him being a kanmushi, but when he goblinized (it does occur after birth in some cases), he saw it as a sign from the kami that he was meant to be evil (or at least less than good). It is his duty to do the will of the magatshui-no-kami (dark kami).

religious characters in SR4 have to be either fanatics that are so into their religion that they will never stray off their path to enlightment or they will become corrupted by SR4's nature.

the second situation will be more common. not a bad idea though. maybe a boondock saints kinda thing?

There are two clauses in Dunkie's Will (I can never spell his name properly from memory, and I don't care enough about him to look up his name) that give 1,000,000 nY bounties to Blood Mages and Toxic Shaman

There is? Interesting....where would one go to collect?

I'm pretty sure you'd haul them to a Draco Foundation building.

I think the tricky part is that they're supposed to be alive. Or, rather, the trickiest part. The first tricky part is, well, finding the bastards.

Why would you say that? Not all religions are incompatible with shadowrunning.

I've actually got two characters in the group I run right now that are dealing with this.

On the one hand, we've got an Islamist gunslinger adept, who doesn't recognize that she's magical. She pretty much thinks everyone around her is a heretic, between the magic users, the metahumans, the cybered (who are trying to improve upon Allah's design of the human body), the harlots and dealers in intoxicants that she meets on the streets, and pretty much anyone else who's not a devout Muslim, and has to work hard to restrain herself and be professional instead of being all "HERESY!" BLAM! So it's not like she has trouble from being too soft for the shadows, but it's more that it makes it hard for her to cooperate with others, especially when those others include the above. Hates technomancers and has been the Clockwork-type reactionary throughout our Emergence campaign.

On the other hand, we've got a Catholic Yucatan Maya shaman who hates Aztechnology. Religion blends pretty heavily with culture for her; that is to say, she does kill people and stuff, preferably AZT employees, and make other breaches of conduct, but in a lot of manners she plays things by the book. For example, on our last run the character was in the third trimester of pregnancy, as she doesn't do birth control with her husband, and she's essentially running so her little kids can have a better life on the money she's saving up. She's been strongly pro-technomancer. So it's interesting that our campaign has seen such conflict between the two religious characters.

The pacifist in our group is a not so religious Welsh troll hacker. That character is much less developed and a hell of a lot harder to write runs for.

Just curious questions

1.) Is the character played by a man or woman?

2.) Does the character wear a hijab?

3.) Did the player research Islam for insight into the character? i.e. Is the character a Shi'a or Sunni? Does the player try to integrate things like the 5 pillars of Islam into gameplay, or is it more of a stereotypical view of Islam?

1) Male. Only male in the group besides me, actually.

2) Yes. Which is actually more helpful than a hindrance for a runner. And we've touched on the irony of a young, independant gunslinging woman being so devoted to a conservative view of religion. The character thinks it's all right that she's going outside and stuff without a male relative only because it's in the name of jihad, much like missing prayer can be excused in the name of jihad.

3) Sunni, Shia also fall into that pesky "heretic" category. The player involved does know his shit to a certain extent, better than I do at least. I mean, I remember a big paper he did towards the beginning of college (he goes to Macalester, they're big on cultural stuff) about the Nation of Islam and Black Muslim movements in the US, so he at least knows basics. Not to mention Minneapolis has the largest Somali population in the US, so it's not like Islam is something we never see or interact with, either. That said, I really couldn't tell you how much external research he's done just for the character. I honestly think he just wanted to play someone who would be at loggerheads with the other characters (that sounds antagonistic, but it's really par for the course for our group; the backstabbing is considered the fun part). I keep asking him half-jokingly if he knows we're not actually playing Dark Heresy, with all of his in-character rhetoric with his fellow ganger-militants about purging the infidels and what all.

1) Slab cures all your problems.

2) I ran it with them having a "Top 10" list, including a "last seen at" place. When they arrive they need to do some legwork to track 'em down.