From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Jul 16 10:35:47 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA06474 for ; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:35:47 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id KAA25019 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:40:01 -0500 Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:40:01 -0500 Message-Id: <199807161540.KAA25019@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #861 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Thursday, July 16 1998 Volume 01 : Number 861 In this digest: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't Re: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light Re: IN> Falling from the fallen Re IN> The Western Wall IN> Re: IN- Roles [none] Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light Re: Re IN> The Western Wall Re: IN> Roles Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light RE: IN> Jewish history RE: IN> In Nomine as LARP Re: IN> Servitors of Dominic who go too far Re: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't RE: IN> In Nomine as LARP Re: IN> IN: the Temple Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light Re: Re IN> The Western Wall Re: Re IN> The Western Wall Re: IN> IN: the Temple Re: IN> IN: the Temple ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:19:11 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Yossi Gurvitz wrote: > At 03:58 PM 7/15/98 , I wrote: > > >I was thinking about the actual Temple. Why should they care? Because the > >Jews thought it the house of God? Then the destruction of -every- "holy" > >place should be just as bad. From what I've understood, Superiors don't > >care much about human religion, apart from Laurence and Dominic. And why > >would the Jews have a special position? Because they consider themselves > >God's chosen people? Many peoples think they have a special relationship > >with a higher being. > Well, that depends on what sort of holy history you have. I tend to take > scripture at face value - you need some background. The way I see it, the > only bit of "holy history" in the books is the fact of the Rebellion, and > that is, frankly, not enough to build on. This is the first time I have heard of the concept of "holy history", so please forgive me if I have misunderstood it. The way I read the above paragraph it basically means accepting (parts) of the Bible as history, yes? > So, yes, I accept (for game purposes) that the Jews were chosen, because > all other nations were guilty of idol-worshipping. Remember: the symphony > assumes there is *one* God, superior to all. Thus, all idol-worshippers > are wrong (and quite possibly Satanic, what with all those human sacrifices > - which were actually much more common than commonly assumed). Thus, the > Jews were right, and the Bible is a holy book, if a bit corrupted by the > passage of time (and I would cut off my arm for a copy of Yves' Bible!). Going from "there is only one God" to "idol-worship is wrong" is quite a step, IMO. There is nothing in IN canon to indicate that the God of the IN universe worries about it - there are plenty of "idol-worshippers" in Heaven. > It's trickier when we come to the New Testament. Basically, I choose an > adaptation of Stefan Heim's version: Jesus *was* the Son of God, but he > wasn't the Messiah, and he was crucified as a false messiah (reading Heim's > excellent book, "Ahasver", is extremely recommended). Then there the bits > no one understands - the Book of Revelations, for starters. > > >I'm -not- trying to put the Jews down here - I don't think they're any > >better or worse than any other people. IMO, that's pretty much what the > >AA:s think to - they see individuals, not peoples. > True, but faith in One God is still essential for salvation, at least the > way I see it, though we could use Dante's version of Limbo (where the souls > of all the excellent men who lived before Christ exist. It's officially a > part of Hell, but those who reach it live rather pleasently, deprived only > of the visage of God). Well, that's certainly -not- canon, as I have understood it. > >Well, the Messiah hasn't been given much room in IN in any case. The Bible > >is not canon in the IN universe. > True enough, but if we are looking for serious gaming, the cosmology has > to make sense. So far, SJG hasn't put out much material about it - at > least, not what I've seen - so we have to make do with what we make up. Well, IMO the cosmology makes pretty good sense without the destruction of the Temple being a major event to the Archangels, which is, I think, what we're still discussing here. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 03:36:46 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't >>>Technically speaking then, Mercurians have a sure-fire demon-detection >technique: hit a suspected demon and wait for the note of dissonance. Keep >bludgeoning if it doesn't sound, apply the Corporeal Song of Healing if it >does.<<< See, this is based on a very flawed perception of celestials and their dissonance conditions. A Mercurian simply wouldn't think of doing something like that, except under extreme circumstances, for the same reason that a Cherub wouldn't think of trying to set up an object of attunement to be destroyed so he can go beat up the destroyer, as described in the APG, p. 30. Dissonance conditions are not these invisible tripwires that suddenly jerk when you accidentally trip on them (or deliberately yank them). They represent a celestial's fundamental nature -- the very opposite of their resonance. Dissonance _hurts_, and that really needs to be emphasized. A Mercurian doesn't avoid violence just because he knows the Symphony will dump dissonance on him if he hits someone -- he avoids violence because Mercurians are non-violent, and acting in a violent manner is antithetical to his most deeply-held convictions. Acting violent is _painful_ for a Mercurian, just as telling a lie is _painful_ for Seraphim...Seraphim don't go around thinking about ways they can circumvent their pesky dissonance conditions. (If they do, they're definitely on their way to Falling.) The idea of violating your dissonance conditions is extremely distasteful to most celestials. Think of a sexual practice you find utterly distasteful and loathsome (never mind what you think about those who choose to practice it, or how libertarian you are -- I'm talking about something that you personally would never want to engage in). That's how angels see dissonant behavior. They may or may not have a tolerant attitude towards other beings who don't suffer dissonance from that behavior, but for them, it's not just being "punished" if they do it, it's the fact that the thought of doing it revolts them, and if they went ahead and did it, because they felt some dire need to do so, it would be a thoroughly miserable experience that will fill them with regret and disgust. Demons have it a bit easier, because their dissonance is usually inflicted on them as a result of the Symphony not cooperating with their desires. But if you play angels like rules-lawyers who will happily skirt their dissonance conditions, or say "I really need to know if this guy is a demon, and I can withstand a point of dissonance, sure, I'll smack him one..." then you aren't getting a handle on celestial psychology. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 01:26:03 -0700 (PDT) From: -=|horsefly|=- Subject: Re: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't *thank-you,* David. that was one of the most thoughtful and insightful posts regarding In Nomine that Really Helped Me Understand the Mechanics (yeah, those words are capitalized intentionally, kinda like Bad Guys and The End typically are). coherent and deep, analytical and easy to follow, your post clarified things in a big way, and gives us all something by analog to reference. once again, my abiding thanks. pax vobiscum, -=|horsefly|=- "Back off, preacher, I don't care if it's Sunday. I ain't no angel, but I never felt better!" --FREEDOM, Alice Cooper ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:34:47 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Yossi Gurvitz wrote: > > Hello, Anders. > > >I'm not trying to argue that everything important has been mentioned in > >canon, but the conceptions of Christianity and Islam have been mentioned. > Both were mentioned, IIRC, as the source of tensions in Heaven (the exile > of Gabriel), not as events per-se. That still makes them more important than the destruction of the Temple - -in published canon-, which is what I'm trying to argue from. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:55:58 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Falling from the fallen On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Roland Ward wrote: > Angels seem always to tread the slippery tightrope of staying holy > and true to their nature, while demons seem only to have to look over > their back and make sure their master/mistress is happy - they can't in > effect fall again. > > However I would suggest that something that could happen to a demon > that isn't really covered is the problem of a demon either becoming too > self obsessed or too random. They would in effect become useless, or > worse a danger to everyone - in both cases they would no longer be evil > just chaotic. A demon might have to check that they don't ultimately > "self-distruct". I think this is represented by a demon going Renegade, which can happen for a variety of reasons. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:07:50 +0100 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: Re IN> The Western Wall >>>I do agree, 100%, that the Western Wall is a much better location for a giant communal tether to Heaven then Notre Dame. I mean, one place you have people praying to God to absolve them of huge communal sin, the other you have pickpockets.<<< >True, ideologically. However, looking at it from an In Nomine Tethers point >of view: Well, do the superiors really get much choice about where their tethers appear on earth? If 3 of the world's major religions (and I'm being kind by including Judaism because it doesn't really count as a major religion in terms of numbers) have venerated one piece of corporeal real-estate as being one of the holiest places in the world dedicated to the monotheistic God for the last thousand years or so then man, the tether is THERE. I don't think the strength of those convictions has got any less strong recently so I don't really see why it would lose its connection with heaven. Unless you think it might connect to hell instead... (Just think. You can include it in the tethers book **hopeful hint** :) And if the Kaaba isn't a tether to Faith/ Stone I will be most upset.) Also, if I was an archangel, I'd appear on earth wherever and whenever I wanted, regardless of whether it was enemy territory. RHIP[1] jo [1] Rank Hath It's Privileges ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 03:58:46 PDT From: "Jens Alm" Subject: IN> Re: IN- Roles J. Michael Neal wrote: >How are roles created? I ask this because higher level roles obviously >require a good deal of background material: birth certificates, awarded >degress, thrid-grade teachers that remember you, etc. Do documents >appear in their proper locations when the role is created? Does the >Symphony alter humans' memories to fit the role? Does a role have to be >started at a low level and be upgraded, with these elements slowly >filling themselves in? > >Or, are roles all the victim of the ubiquitous courthouse fire that >destroyed all previous records of their existence? Or do the documents >show up, but there is no person that remembers the actions that >supposedly took place at a date previous to the role's creation? This >sounds reasonable until you consider how quickly most roles would >deflate without this kind of background. > In my campaign, this all depends on the level of the role. I think Neel Krishnaswami did a good write-up on this. A level one role is just that, a role. It has no connections with the real world. Any papers you might possess are more or less blatant fakes. At higher levels, the papers do exist. Again, in my campaign they more or less appear from thin air and then they've always been there. This is of course a big change in the symphony, which is the reason why not all angels are given waterproof identities. My setting is more or less: 1. You have fake documents only, nobody knows who you are. 2. The people surrounding you on a daily basis knows you, but only briefly ("Peterson, yeah, he's that guy at marketing, isn't he"). Your birth-certificates, etc are still faked, although the fakes are pretty good. 3. People around you know you, but only on a professional basis. You have valid documents from school, etc. If someone looks you up, you do exist , but nobody seems to really remember you ("Peterson, he was in Ms Dartmoore's class, wasn't he. No? Well, you know, it's twenty years ago, you don't remember everybody."). 4. You socialize somewhat with people around you, though very seldom in your own home. You have a few friends, but nobody really close. Your background is more or less complete with adoptive parents, but you don't seem to have had any close friends in school. People remember you, but only in vague terms ("Peterson, yeah, I remember him. Can't say I knew him though, I guess he was a little up-tight.") 5. You lead a normal life, complete with background and an average-sized group of friends. The problem is just that. Your background is just too normal. You may have been a gangster, but then you were a perfectly normal gangster who robbed a statistical amount of liquor-stores. 6. I only allow this level for characters who have lived several years using the same role. This level of role is totally indistinguishable from the real thing. You could as well be human, and there is almost no way (part from the wings/tail) to see that you are a celestial. This type of role requires extensive support from the character to uphold and is hard (though not impossible) to combine with an extensive celestial behaviour. /Jens Alm med97jal@student2.lu.se ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 12:47:33 +0100 From: "Hart, Joanna" Subject: [none] >>There could be a hidden agenda from D which involvs systematically sparing >>and fostering specific sinners on a political basis. Probably other angels >>suspect them of this every time they see someone either being punished to >>an extent they consider over-severe, or let off on what seems to them to be >>a loophole. Only the Dominicans know for sure and they won't stoop to >>defending themselves. >This is exactly the kind of sneaky politicking for selfish desire that >Dominic is so dead-set against, IMHO. Oh, I agree ;) IMG there is no hidden agenda, but if a GM wanted them to be genuinely sinister plotters then you could do it. I prefer it that other angels just tend to be biased against them because they don't know the full story -- and everyone always wants to believe their friends' excuses rather than The Man. Think about how many people will tell you that they have been persecuted by the police because they were pulled over for speeding and given a lecture about safe driving... or for GMs, think about how many times players have muttered about unfair decisions or GM bias because they didn't know the whole story or what the NPCs and other PCs were up to -- and the GM _couldn't_ tell them what was behind it because it would ruin the game for other people (this is most relevant to MU* or LARP GMs I think). In Dominic's view, other angels should trust divine judgement blindly, and be grateful that someone cares enough to keep them on the straight and narrow, so the way to teach them to do that is by continuing to set a good example. Judgement is very black and white. Either someone is right or they are wrong and if they are wrong then they get told what they did, punished accordingly and should then stop doing wrong things. Funnily enough, not everyone else sees it like that. Doesn't seem to have worked in the last X thousand years but give it a bit more time... Sometimes simply knowing that you are right has to be enough. jo Actually, the most important thing is probably that the judgement-angels themselves should be able to trust their own senses of judgement, so maybe Dominic thinks it might be difficult for them to do that if every single minor decision they made was being picked apart by untrained and biased angels of other superiors who were looking for something to jump on ;) Naturally, when _he_ reviews their judgements it is a different matter... being corrected by the chief judge in private is different from dealing with unruly hecklers. Other angels probably have avenues of appeal if they have genuine appeals to make. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 08:05:30 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light > > Both were mentioned, IIRC, as the source of tensions in Heaven (the exile > > of Gabriel), not as events per-se. > > That still makes them more important than the destruction of the Temple > -in published canon-, which is what I'm trying to argue from. So let me get this straight. Suppose that Rabbi Moishe Gerwinstein gets pulled in by Steve Jackson Games to write In Nomine: Judaea, a history of the Hebrew People from 2000 BC - Today, and it has a whole section on Destruction of the Temple A and Destruction of the Temple B (not to mention the Kazars... but we won't go there.) All of the sudden, because of publication, this is all magically relevant, and the Superiors care? I just don't have that sort of faith in published canon. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 08:17:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: Re IN> The Western Wall > Well, do the superiors really get much choice about where their tethers > appear on earth? If 3 of the world's major religions (and I'm being kind by > including Judaism because it doesn't really count as a major religion in > terms of numbers) have venerated one piece of corporeal real-estate as being > one of the holiest places in the world dedicated to the monotheistic God for > the last thousand years or so then man, the tether is THERE. I don't think > the strength of those convictions has got any less strong recently so I > don't really see why it would lose its connection with heaven. Unless you > think it might connect to hell instead... My argument is that I don't believe that Notre Dame is a strong tether for all three major religions - well, certainly not Islam. It is a great tether for Laurence/Dominic, but I'm not wholy convinced that its a representation of Heaven. The problem is that I can't think of any place that is a good place for all three that is not in the Near East. > (Just think. You can include it in the tethers book **hopeful hint** :) And > if the Kaaba isn't a tether to Faith/ Stone I will be most upset.) I don't think that taking the Hajj is written up as a rite or anything, so - - believe it or not - there is likely no Kaaba in Mecca. Although talk about a giant tether to Stone, woo. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 08:41:06 -0400 From: neel@cswv.com (Neel Krishnaswami) Subject: Re: IN> Roles Eeyore wrote: > >How are roles created? I ask this because higher level roles obviously >require a good deal of background material: birth certificates, awarded >degress, thrid-grade teachers that remember you, etc. Do documents >appear in their proper locations when the role is created? Does the >Symphony alter humans' memories to fit the role? Does a role have to be >started at a low level and be upgraded, with these elements slowly >filling themselves in? I tend to dislike the idea of reality-warping Role creation, because it has nasty implications -- if you can bend reality to create documents to prove your existence, then how about bending reality to create documents that "prove" someone is an embezzler, rightful heir to a fortune, or so on. It also makes it too hard for an angel or demon to maintain a low-key existence where they quietly influence people, because as soon as they are discovered the other side can wreck their Roles as easily as they can create it. >Or, are roles all the victim of the ubiquitous courthouse fire that >destroyed all previous records of their existence? Or do the documents >show up, but there is no person that remembers the actions that >supposedly took place at a date previous to the role's creation? This >sounds reasonable until you consider how quickly most roles would >deflate without this kind of background. In my game, Roles and the associated documentation and history are created the same way that humans get them -- someone has to live through the life of the person with the Role. The higher the Role level, the more carefully this was done and the more documentation and personal connections the angel will have. (There are minor angelic and demonic spirits whose entire job is to shepherd a Vessel through the growth process, carefully building up the person's life, until it is time to hand it off to a more powerful Servitor.) A description of what each level of Role nets you IMC can be found on my web page -- check out http://www.sff.net/people/neelk/in-nomine/in_nomine.html/ under the Setting section. (The page is a bit dusty: between a flaky Net connection and hard drive crashes I am having difficulty connecting from home.) - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 15:03:24 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Emily Dresner wrote: > > > > Both were mentioned, IIRC, as the source of tensions in Heaven (the exile > > > of Gabriel), not as events per-se. > > > > That still makes them more important than the destruction of the Temple > > -in published canon-, which is what I'm trying to argue from. > > So let me get this straight. Suppose that Rabbi Moishe Gerwinstein gets > pulled in by Steve Jackson Games to write In Nomine: Judaea, a history of > the Hebrew People from 2000 BC - Today, and it has a whole section on > Destruction of the Temple A and Destruction of the Temple B (not to > mention the Kazars... but we won't go there.) All of the sudden, because > of publication, this is all magically relevant, and the Superiors care? All I'm saying, or at least trying to say, is that from published canon we can't draw the conclusion that the Superiors care about the destructions of the Temples. Maybe they do, maybe they don't - we don't know. If you want to make the destruction of the Temple an important event in your campaign I certainly won't try to stop you. Yes, I've tried to argue for reasons that the Superiors don't find it very important, since it hasn't exactly been given much space in published canon. The Purity Crusade and the creation of Islam apparently are more relevant to the AA:s today. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:43:38 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> Jewish history Hi Jo, Thanks for all the stuff you posted in reply to my request. It is all greatly appreciated. I have printed it out and placed it in my In Nomine file. I will check out the sites mentioned this evening, when I can afford to go on line. > (Its too early in the morning for this :) Here are some I missed.) > > The first ever ghetto was in Venice (Ghetto is an Italian word. I > have been > there, and they still have 2 active synagogues inside the old > ghetto walls. > One for winter and one for summer (I kid you not). The community was a bit > surprised when we turned up because there were a group of us and I don't > think they'd seen so many young people in synagogue for a long time -- it > seemed to me like an aging/ dying community but it has its own web page so > maybe not. http://www.doge.it/ghetto/indexi.htm). > > The Dreyfus affair, which was one of the first examples of modern > anti-semitism. This happened at the end of the last century when a Jewish > army captain in France was falsely accused of spying for the Germans by > anti-semitic elements in the french military and sentenced to life > imprisonment and exile. Possibly most notable for the effects it had on > French society and writers like Proust and Zola (who was a journalist at > the time and wrote a very famous article indicting the french military > called 'J'Accuse'). > > (An interesting article about it in Time Magazine is at > http://pathfinder.com/@@SFdk7WKRGwEAQNqo/time/international/1995/9 > 50925/hist > ory.html ) > > Also the Russian Revolution (A lot of Bolsheviks were Jewish. > Trotsky was.) Obviously, as I have spent so much time getting Berlin up and working as a setting, the aspects of Jewish (or any kind of) history that I am most interested in are those that echo to this day in Berlin. Having said that, the Venice bit was extremely interesting because I'm currently working on Venice as part of a setting for a WoD LARP game set in and during the Italian Renaissance. > More associated with WW2: > Kristallnacht. (so-called because a lot of glass was broken. An > anti-semitic riot in Berlin ) I have used the Kristallnacht twice already. It was a deeply significant and dark event in Berlin's history. I'm sure I will use it again. > Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto > A website about Wallenberg (http://www.raoul-wallenberg.com/) and > one about > other people who risked their lives during the holocaust to save Jews, > including at least one from Berlin itself (which must have been SO > dangerous) (http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/facts/hist/righteou.html) > > You might also want to look at http://www.hagalil.com/jewish/israel.htm > which is quite interesting because it is based in Munich so will tell you > more about Jewish life in Germany today than I could. It is _very_ > different from the way American Jews think. > > A good general page of links about Jewish history is at > http://www.igc.apc.org/ddickerson/judaica.html (You can even read the > Tanach in hebrew if you really want) Thanks enormously for all this. I am looking forward to some fulfilling browsing. I am, as always, Ellen (Lilim of Self Indulgent Avoidance Tactics) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:43:41 +0100 From: "Ellen Kakkaratchi" Subject: RE: IN> In Nomine as LARP Okay, on a different thread, which I hope hasn't been done to death previous to me joining the list, are their any resources, web or otherwise, regarding In Nomine as a live action game? I run a (UK based) LARP group which currently stages World of darkness (mostly Vampire) campaigns, and one off freeforms based in worlds of our own making. It has been striking me for some time that In Nomine could work well as live action, but before I start designing a system, I thought I'd check to see if someone had already done the work for me! Also, what do people think about the potential for such a thing. There is never any problem getting players for vampire games, even the more unusual ones we do (dark ages etc.). Will In Nomine be as popular? Has anyone run an In Nomine LARP? If so, what conclusions did you draw? I am, as always, Ellen (Lilim of Self Indulgent Avoidance Tactics) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:45:01 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Servitors of Dominic who go too far These guys sound like they'd have a hard time passing many of Dominic's *weekly* inspection visits. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:00:25 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Acting Dissonant -- Why celestials don't Thank you David. My own thoughts on dissonance are very similar: The dissonance mechanics are a way of representing something that should ALSO be role-played. When an angel does something dissonant, the character's emotional reaction should be along the lines of "Oh my God! What have I *DONE*!?!?" A human in such circumstances can suffer psychosomatic illness -- go into a depressive funk, develop headaches, nausea, insomnia and bad dreams, in general torture themselves. An angel tortures itself by developing dissonance. But note that it is the ANGEL that tortures ITSELF because it is so repelled by what it has done or caused to happen. Dissonance is not like getting the flu, something infliected from the outside. Dissonance is like anorexia or a tension headache (to choose examples of very different magnitudes), inflicted on the inside. It may or may not line up with guilt. A seraph could, perhaps, lie to protect its friends or its cause, and eat dissonance. Objectively, it may know it did the right thing, and its Archangel will agree and heal the dissonance as soon as possible. But until it is healed, the seraph may feel like someone who just shot a beloved pet dog to put the beast out of its misery -- knowing they did the right thing but still feeling simply awful. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 16:15:32 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: RE: IN> In Nomine as LARP On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Ellen Kakkaratchi wrote: > Okay, on a different thread, which I hope hasn't been done to death previous > to me joining the list, are their any resources, web or otherwise, regarding > In Nomine as a live action game? I run a (UK based) LARP group which > currently stages World of darkness (mostly Vampire) campaigns, and one off > freeforms based in worlds of our own making. It has been striking me for > some time that In Nomine could work well as live action, but before I start > designing a system, I thought I'd check to see if someone had already done > the work for me! > > Also, what do people think about the potential for such a thing. There is > never any problem getting players for vampire games, even the more unusual > ones we do (dark ages etc.). Will In Nomine be as popular? Has anyone run an > In Nomine LARP? If so, what conclusions did you draw? Well, that would depend on a number of things. Is IN well-known? Are the people you play with willing to try new things? (I'd say yes to that one, from your description.) How much material can you give them beforehand? You'll at least have to present the general cosmology - how much more would depend on the level you're playing at (Superiors, Word-bound, "normal" angels, Soldiers & Sorcerers, minor demons, hapless humans). I'd really like to try this myself, but I have too little time. :) Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:17:58 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> IN: the Temple Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > So? It was probably a Tether, but otherwise I can't see why this > would be a big deal. Okay, this appears to have turned into a contest in which you dare us to make you feel impressed. You win. We can't do that. In another post, you said you were saying that canon gives no indication that the Superiors regard the destruction of the Temple as a big deal. Quite true. Canon is silent on the subject. What Emily and I are doing is *extrapolating* on canon (and perhaps registering a criticism), saying that the reasonable extrapolation is that the destruction of the Temple *ought* to be a matter of some concern to the Superiors. > As far as I have seen, the God of IN doesn't care much about being > worshipped. Well, that depends entirely on how you want to "play" God's character in IN (though canon recommends He stay off-stage, along with Lucifer). Though the Bible is not "inerrant" in the IN canon, it is still a source, and that portrays God as wanting several very clear things from people. To the Jews in particular, in the First of the Ten Commandmants, He says "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before me." I.e. "You will worship Me and no one else." In the Christian scriptures, the "prime directive" for everyone (quoted from elsewhere in the Jewish scriptures) is "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength." Okay, so you choose to ignore this bit of Bible for your game. Fine. You can do that and still probably play a "canonical" game, if that's important. But since the whole theme of the divine in IN is love, which would include the love by humans of God, I could argue that the Biblical approach is more centrally canonical. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:21:22 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Communism and Islam seem to get a bad light Taznoky wrote: > That was something that we > can say that was demoniac by the part of the cristian church, the > spanish sent Hernan Cortez to kill'em all. And he did so. Demonic, very likely; by the Christian church, no. The conquistadors were usually opposed by the missionaries, who wanted to *convert* the natives, not loot and kill them. There was one bishop who is somewhat infamous for burning a lot of Inca or Maya (I forget which) books, but (1) this is not the same as burning the people and, (2) even that earned him an official reprimand from the Church hierarchy. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:24:09 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: Re IN> The Western Wall Emily Dresner wrote: > My argument is that I don't believe that Notre Dame is a strong > tether for all three major religions - well, certainly not Islam. I'd suppose that the big tether at Notre Dame is a left-over from the French origins of the game, along with the assorted French names of various Archangels. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:50:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: Re IN> The Western Wall > > My argument is that I don't believe that Notre Dame is a strong > > tether for all three major religions - well, certainly not Islam. > > I'd suppose that the big tether at Notre Dame is a left-over from > the French origins of the game, along with the assorted French > names of various Archangels. AH HA! The Mystery is solved! :) - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 16:53:14 +0200 (DFT) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> IN: the Temple On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, Earl Wajenberg wrote: > Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > > > So? It was probably a Tether, but otherwise I can't see why this > > would be a big deal. > > Okay, this appears to have turned into a contest in which you dare > us to make you feel impressed. You win. We can't do that. I'm sorry if I have come across like that, it has not been my point. Personally, I appreciate the importance of the destruction of the Temple as an event that changed history. > In another post, you said you were saying that canon gives no > indication that the Superiors regard the destruction of the > Temple as a big deal. Quite true. Canon is silent on the subject. > > What Emily and I are doing is *extrapolating* on canon (and perhaps > registering a criticism), saying that the reasonable extrapolation > is that the destruction of the Temple *ought* to be a matter of some > concern to the Superiors. I'm trying to put this the right way, so please forgive me if I fail. You have used extra-canonical sources, primarily the Old Testament and your own beliefs (I think), to figure out how important the destruction of the Temple might be to the Superiors. I have said that canon doesn't say it was important, and tried to find reasons for that. I don't think any of us are right or wrong, we have just had different views of the subject. I certainly agree that -if- you use the Old Testament as an important source, then the destruction of the Temple would be a very important event. But if you -only- go by IN canon, you can't say that it has been percieved as important. I hope I haven't misstated anyone's possion here. > > As far as I have seen, the God of IN doesn't care much about being > > worshipped. > > Well, that depends entirely on how you want to "play" God's character > in IN (though canon recommends He stay off-stage, along with Lucifer). > > Though the Bible is not "inerrant" in the IN canon, it is still > a source, and that portrays God as wanting several very clear things > from people. To the Jews in particular, in the First of the Ten > Commandmants, He says "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other > gods before me." I.e. "You will worship Me and no one else." > In the Christian scriptures, the "prime directive" for everyone > (quoted from elsewhere in the Jewish scriptures) is "You shall love > the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength." > > Okay, so you choose to ignore this bit of Bible for your game. > Fine. You can do that and still probably play a "canonical" game, > if that's important. But since the whole theme of the divine in > IN is love, which would include the love by humans of God, I could > argue that the Biblical approach is more centrally canonical. Well, firstly I don't equal love and worship. Secondly, there is nothing that I can recall from IN canon that inplies that God cares much how or even if you worship Him. It's how you live your life that matters. If you are unselfish and help your fellow humans - reach your Destiny - you go to Heaven. If you act selfishly, and/or cause a lot of pain and destruction, you go to Hell. Worship or love for God doesn't come into it. If you use the Bible it's something quite different, and not canonical IN IMO. I'm not saying that is a Bad Thing - one of the things I really like about IN is that it's possible to do so many different things with it. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! Geography is just therapy for imperialists. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:21:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> IN: the Temple > You have used extra-canonical sources, primarily the Old Testament and > your own beliefs (I think), to figure out how important the destruction of > the Temple might be to the Superiors. I have said that canon doesn't say > it was important, and tried to find reasons for that. Actually, not at all. This is good old fashioned history and the willingness to open a book. The Destruction of the Temple occured in 70 AD, which is long after the first versions of the Septuagint (later called The Old Testament) were being circulated in Greek and Latin throughout the Roman Empire. The last book was written (Malachi) long before the Birth of Christ. The first books of the New Testament were already being circulated as well among the early disciples. [Fact - the Coptic Church was established in 80 AD using the first versions of the NT as a basis.] _Building_ it the first time is in 1 Kings, that's Biblical, that's King Solomon. But the Diaspora and the ending of Judaea is not. There is nothing Biblical going on here at all. This is much like saying, "The Holocaust happened, and it had a profound effect on Jewish thought and outlook on God. But because it happened in a place, the Superiors don't care." Were there massacres? Yes. Did people think the end was coming? Yes. Is it a physical, historical act which had a profound effect on a certain branch of religious thought? Yes. As a matter of fact, it's MORE profound, because as Earl pointed out, it was one of the catalysts that got Christianity off to a good start, and if that doesn't effect the In Nomine universe, I'm not entire sure what does. Straight world history. Nothing more, nothing less. It is _extremely_ possible that canon doesn't say it's important yet because sourcebooks focusing on that time period haven't been written yet and THAT is the reason, not because Superiors didn't CARE. - - Em Current Quote: Aron shakes Daimon. "You don't ask Eli *questions*, man. You just nudge him occasionally towards the world of SENSE." ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #861 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.