From: Colin Watson (watson@computing-science.aberdeen.ac.uk)
Date: Fri 03 Dec 1993 - 20:07:47 EET
I'd prefer to think of it as "sensibly-worded" rather than "sneakily-worded". Such care only has to be taken with temporal information; Time-independent knowledge should be easy to glean. But remember that you're dealing with an entity that has no sense of Time.
>I think the gods are very aware of the concept of time.
Yes, they are aware of the concept of Time (with a capital "T"; ie. mortal Time which was the result of the Compromise) but they have no practical experience of it.
>Before Time, they had free action. To
>save the world, they grudgingly accepted to give this up. I might even say
>that all of the God Plane is bound to a timeline now too, but I'll probably
>catch plenty of flak for it.
Well, I was under the impression that in GodTime the gods have free-will to do anything within their power. eg. Humakt can chop you up if he feels like it.
>My ideal guide for divination is the way it is presented in the CoPrax
>Biturian Varosh story. When he needs guidance, Biturian spends a few
>points of Divination and asks Issaries. Issaries doesn't send him
>confusing visions, or arcane max-7-word answers; he just answers the
>question! See the Chalana Arroy chapter:
I don't like the max-7-word answers either (but I do like confusing
visions). Like I said before, I think the rules are an abstraction of the
actual process of divination. The player asks "Where is Olaf now?"; but
I assume the character (Priest) has to be a lot more careful about how
he goes about asking otherwise the God wouldn't understand the question.
The rules abstract this process. It's this translation which removes
the certainty of the result.
There are few things more unbalancing for a campaign than cast-iron,
guaranteed accurate, 100% correct divinations. If you make temporal
divinations hard, then this helps to balance things (and you have a
good excuse for it too).
>The way I see it, your god knows these things about you, and not much
>else:
>* what you tell him through prayer
>* what others say about you through prayer
>* interactions you've had during ceremonies, or heroquests
I agree this far...
>* (roughly) how often you call upon him for rune magic
Exactly how often you will ever call on him for rune magic for your whole existance (even for the Time you haven't experienced yet).
>* (more exactly) the times you've called for Divine Intervention,
> and especially the circumstances in which he answered.
Not the times, but only the circumstances.
>* whether you're alive or not
Whether you have lived or will live. (Not entirely useful info:-)
>* if your beliefs have turned against the god
This is a tough one. Personally I don't think the god can read your mind unless, perhaps, you're communicationg with him. eg. If you pray to him he may sense your guilt; but if you avoid all interaction then he should be none the wiser (unless some other worshipper informs on you). Of course, if your change of belief causes you to violate his domain then he will know of it. This is where spirits of reprisal come in... [I'm very much open to persuasion on this tho]
>(I've just gone back and re-read Colin's post). I agree with the
>second half a lot. I'm just not too big on ideas A-D, as presented.
The ideas A-D were somewhat hypothetical. If a player asked such a question in my game I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that his character would have sense enough to phrase the Divination sensibly. Then I roll the bones, and if it fails I give him a suitable obtuse response :-)
>If your argument were correct then on casting Diviniation the Priest might get
>a response at any random time e.g. two seconds after birth, rather than the
>here and now.
>Similarly for any other Divine Spell.
Depends on how you think Divine magic works. I don't see it as a "call to god" to which the god responds creating the effect. The simple fact that some spells are temporal makes this apparent. I think Divine spells are more like contracts between the God & worshipper wherein the worshipper is given limited control over part of the god's domain (which can be invoked at any point in time) for a short duration. My only problem with this is that it suggests that you could cast a spell before you had sacrificed for it and the god wouldn't notice the difference provided you sacrificed later! <;-S Help.
>Provided the Priest casting the spell is located in the right time frame (which
>he or she is) then locating the here and now is easy.
Here and now and *for the next fifteen minutes*?
___
CW.
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