From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Thu Dec 3 01:06:54 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA28874 for ; Thu, 3 Dec 1998 01:06:54 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id AAA23802 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 3 Dec 1998 00:34:50 -0600 Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 00:34:50 -0600 Message-Id: <199812030634.AAA23802@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 #1033 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, December 3 1998 Volume 01 : Number 1033 In this digest: Re: IN> Auld Reekie Re: IN> Interior Artwork Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) Re: IN> Edinburgh tethers? IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN Re: IN> Interior Artwork IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Re: IN> REVIEW: Rev V - Final Trumpet Re: IN> Interior Artwork Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Re: IN> Pandora's box Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) IN> Testing Re: IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... Re: IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs IN> Santa Claus IN> Faith and Atheists IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... Re: IN> Interior Artwork Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Re: IN> Santa Claus Re: IN> REVIEW: Rev V - Final Trumpet Re: IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN Defending Dominic (Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs) Re: IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN Re: IN> Testing Re: Defending Dominic (Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:49:21 +0100 (CET) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Auld Reekie On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, Hart, Joanna wrote: > Secret Corridor under the Grass Market - Tether to Saminga > This is the secret corridor between the grass market (a little backstreet > off the Royal Mile) and the Edinburgh Medical School which was used by the > infamous Burke & Hare, also known as the bodysnatchers. They lured people > into their house, killed them, and sold the bodies to a senior doctor in the > medical school when they were still warm. (This was in the early 1800s). > (NB. They were finally caught and prosecuted when one of them testified > against the other -- the doctor went on to have a long and illustrious > career) The story I heard was that they were exposed when some of the medical students recognized the corpse as a lady of questionable moral standing whom they had, ah, talked to just the evening before, when she had seemed in perfectly good health. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:55:18 +0100 (CET) From: Anders Gabrielsson Subject: Re: IN> Interior Artwork I'd like to see Mike Mignola, of Hellboy fame, do some IN art. His style is also a bit cartoony, but in a more sinister way, IMO. Anders Gabrielsson anders@stp.ling.uu.se The contents of this message belong to me and nobody else. So there! May you have the knowledge of a sage, and the wisdom of a child. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 98 13:01 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) >Walter wrote: > >> Where do you think GURPS IOU came from...? > >Shameless self plug, Walter? *grin* Actually, I think it's out of stock now, or very close, so I can't really plug it very usefully any more. And, of course, I'm not *at all* egotistical.... >Leath (who just finished re-reading IOU). And you're still semi-coherent? What did we do wrong? - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 13:05:34 -0500 From: John Karakash - Lucent ASCC Subject: Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) Robert Knop wrote: > > I've not run (or played) Planescape, but if I did it would be under GURPS > rules. (Like many non-AD&D players, I have serious issues with the AD&D > rules; I haven't even read the 2nd edition, but I don't think it fixed most > of my issues.) I know that there are some who abhor the Planescape setting, > but I think it's interesting. The only thing that bugs me about it is that > the (stilted) AD&D alignment system comes through just a little too clearly. > IMHO, you don't need alignments at all to have Planescape make sense. > However, some of the character of the border towns is a little too > one-dimensional, screaming out their alignments. The Planescape designer did his darnedest to remove alignment from being important but he was locked into using it. That it shows up at all is a tribute to TSR's tenacity. - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ | John Karakash - Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs | | (919)388-2665(COOL) MIB2300 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 11:17:16 -0800 (PST) From: Robert Knop Subject: Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) > The Planescape designer did his darnedest to remove > alignment from being important but he was locked into using > it. That it shows up at all is a tribute to TSR's tenacity. And that you can run the game almost without modification, elimiating the concept of character alignment, is a tribute to the designer's vision and skill :) - -Rob ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 14:14:55 -0500 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Edinburgh tethers? At 2:32 PM +0100 12/2/98, Anders Gabrielsson wrote: >case of cannibalism, during the 17th, 18th century, perhaps? Anyway, there >was this guy who had this thing for eating people, Sawney Bean's caves are mentioned as a Tether in the Tetherbook. Unless the pagecount has changed drastically, it will be on p. 97, and it's to Haagenti. http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Roleplayer/Roleplayer22/PrelimBout.html has some stuff about 'em, about midway down. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 15:03:50 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN Arcangeles is an IN setting for an interplanetary future. It could also be in the further, interstellar future, but then the city should be older and, of course, you would want to add in whatever issues distinguish your interstellar setting. Arcangeles is a space-station city in geosynchronous orbit over the longitude of Los Angeles. Legally, it is a city and county of California and thus US territory. Its economic base is various vacuum industries (including production of foamed and macrocrystalline metals) and a microwave power relay into the North American grid. Physically, Arcangeles is a thick ring with an irregular glob of tanks and boxy things in the middle. This glob is the industrial center; the ring is the residential area. The current population is several hundred thousand. Since Arcangeles is a building as well as a city, there is no real "outside." The nearest thing is a small collection of arboretum parks. The nicer parts of the city avoid a claustrophic feel with high ceilings, cool pale colors, lots of potted plants, mirrors, and holo-murals. These areas tend to be on the upper, inner side of the ring, where the gravity is a tad lower than Earth normal. ("Inner ring" is slang for the privileged class in many Anglophone orbital cities.) Commercial areas are all malls. The less pleasant parts of the station are the reverse of the inner rings -- claustrophobic, industrial-looking, either bare of decor or plastered with grafitti and advertizing. There are also the undeveloped parts of the station -- wide, dark, empty decks, with the steel bones of the station showing through. - - Tethers - The Archangels have no intention of letting Arcangeles go the way of its dirtside ancestor. As a result, divine tethers outnumber infernal ones, so far. Lightning - The whole station is a vast Tether to Lightning, which is the main reason the divine predominates, but most of it is "outer precincts," so to speak. It channels Essence to Jean, but that's about it. The inner precincts of the Tether are in the City Services Center, where everything from power grid to recycling of air and water to orbital adjustment are controlled. There is a second Tether -- or a secondary center to the single Tether - -- in the main computer bay, which is the home to the largest community in the city of AIs with souls. Servitors of Jean and Dominic work to protect the rights of this new breed of mortal, and sometimes wind up associating with Lilim working for Freedom. However, Lilith has noted that three Lilim have gone Bright as a result of these associations, one even taking service with Dominic Fire - Focus One, the first and still biggest & busiest solar smelter. It is out in the glob of industry, at the ring's center. When the Tether staff are corporeal, they appear as spacesuited figures busy at some technical task. Wind - The docks, all around the station, but centered in the conning tower. Its staff are also usually anonymous spacesuited figures. Usually in a hurry, of course, or sometimes doing a flashy zero-g manoeuver. Trade - Getting Arcangeles up there was something of an economic miracle, as well as a technical one, and that's where Marc came in. The Vacuum Industries Association was his main mortal tool in this, and he has a Tether in their offices in the inner ring. Flowers - The first and biggest air farm in the station. This is a series of greenhouse-like chambers, lit by light-pipes from the hull, full of pipes and huge glass tanks filled with bubbling green water. NOT the kind of place you usually associate with Novalis, but it is here that her Word keeps the whole population alive and breathing. Thanks to the work of her servitors, one of the larger arboreta has been built next door and the Tether's borders have expanded to take it in. There, people relax and soak in the peace of the celestial side of her Word. But the raw life is in the plumbing. And on the Infernal side, we have: Technology - Arcangeles was a battleground between Lightning and Technology since it was just a blueprint. Lightning has the ascendancy for now, but Technology has never given up and has a Tether in the microwave power relay. This is supposed to beam power down, in the form of microwaves, to a few acres of receiving antenna out in the California deserts. Thanks to Vapulan-inspired corner-cutting, the transmitter doesn't use quite the right frequencies and is slowly baking the desert beneath the antenna into sterility. It also sporadically loses alignment and zaps Pasadena, causing massive power, communications problems, and gremlin plagues. The Tether includes the beam itself and the receiving antenna. Vapulan demons can teleport up and down between Arcangeles and the desert (or, occasionally, Pasadena). Media - Nybbas has a thriving Tether in the offices of Circle Star Network, headquartered in Arcangeles and the nucleus of "Hollywood Heights," the unofficial name for the orbital side of the west coast entertainment industry. CSN is most famous for its international marketing. It broadcasts culturally and politically tailored programming to anyone who pays for it -- mostly shopping channels, porn, and artfully slanted news. The CSN logo is a star perched on the rim of a thick circle, like a large diamond on a ring; some detractors have pointed out that the star is an inverted pentacle. Greed - Mammon has a minor Tether in the offices of GeoSync Financial Services, working toward the economic stratification of all the cities of the Geosync. - - Adventure Ideas - Endless turf wars between Lightning and Technology, of course. The uneasy dance between servitors or Jean, Dominic, and Lilith has been mentioned. If Lilith tries to found a Tether in the AI community, and if the AIs become anti-human enough in their attitudes and methods, Lilith could find herself being muscled out by Factions. A space station is a temptingly fragile environment for servitors of Saminga to attack. You could get so much death from so little an investment of time and trouble. Servitors of Lightning could be emplyed in blocking such an effort. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Dec 1998 06:06:15 +1100 From: "Patrick O'Duffy" Subject: Re: IN> Interior Artwork Anders Gabrielsson wrote: > I'd like to see Mike Mignola, of Hellboy fame, do some IN art. His style > is also a bit cartoony, but in a more sinister way, IMO. I think you're unlikely to see Mignola do gaming work. It doesn't pay as well as his comics work, and he's too slow an artist to do both. Shame - I love his work. I've actually quite fond of Dan Smith's art. It's cartoony, which I like, and covers a lot of different styles of characters. I would like to see more IN art from Ramon Perez (love those proportions and body shapes), and less from April Lee (hate those faces). But that's just me. - -- Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia There is always room on TV for a man who can beat people to jelly in nine flat... HUNTER S. THOMPSON, "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 15:50:02 -0600 From: shadow-puppet@juno.com (The Shadow Puppet) Subject: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Thus spake Kevin: >In my opinion, this is part of the reason why Judgement is necessary. >This is the sort of heresy they're there to catch. The dissonance >requirements catch nasty angels of all but two Choirs, Seraphim and Mercurians. All >the others have restrictions forcing them into generally behaving morally >(as opposed to avoiding specific forms of immorality). I think you've forgotten a choir ... how does the dissonance restriction of the Ofanim enforce a "moral" code of behavior? >The only way around >this is to get the player to think "If I know the truth, and don't act on >it, what kind of Seraph am I?", or the equivalent for Mercurians. If a >Seraph really doesn't care about the Truth, or a Mercurian really >doesn't care about humans, then why shouldn't they commit dissonant acts? Using this same method, I can answer my own question about the Ofanim. Perhaps they would view actions commonly thought of as 'evil' as 'restricting the motion of others' -- murder, for example, does tend to slow the victim down somewhat! And since an Ofanite is the Celestial Embodiment of dynamic motion, how could s/he justify taking that away from others? But I agree wholeheartedly with you ... the ability for some angels to overlook non-dissonant (yet unethical) behavior is certainly part of the reason why Judgement is necessary. TheShadowPuppet - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I feed on the flesh of the living ... and I vote! - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 16:12:53 EST From: BillionSix@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> REVIEW: Rev V - Final Trumpet Just wanted to say: Brian (me) agrees! Actually, my opinion is that if the storyline in Fall of the Malakim and The Final Trumpet were better written and fleshed out a great deal, they would be a good basis for a novel, or perhaps a trilogy. (though this would take a great deal of fleshing out, subplots and so forth) It's probably too late to actually do that though, since the plot is so well known by now, but I will say that if anyone does write an In Nomine novel, I'd probably buy it, just because. Yours, Brian A Rogers Dumb Quote: "Everybody hates me!" "Why do you suppose that is?" "Because I'm the son of the devil?" "Uh-huh. That's a good start. Why else?" My. Mackey and Damien, "South Park" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 16:23:25 EST From: BillionSix@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Interior Artwork In a message dated 12/2/98 10:32:03 AM Central Standard Time, eeyore@visi.com writes: > As long as we're on the subject of things we'd like to see changed about > IN product, might I suggest that Dan Smith's art be de-emphasized if not > gotten rid of? Hey, I like Dan Smith's stuff, though I agree that bringing in other artists wouldn't hurt. Variety being the spice of life and stuff. As a side note, when I first started to see and enjoy the prolific, even omnipresent work of Dan Smith, I had trouble deciphering the scrawl he signs his work with. So I just called him Smurf. And in my mind Smurf is who he will always and should always be. Spread the word. Yours, Brian A Rogers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 21:31:18 +0000 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs At 15:50 02/12/98 -0600, you wrote: > >But I agree wholeheartedly with you ... the ability for some angels to >overlook non-dissonant (yet unethical) behavior is certainly part of the >reason why Judgement is necessary. > Which would be fine if Judgement never engaged in ethically dubious behaviour either ;) jo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 16:48:13 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Jo Hart wrote: > Which would be fine if Judgement never engaged in ethically dubious > behaviour either ;) Yeah, you'd think this wouldn't be a problem with *angels*, for Pete's sake. Good think over-punishing is dissonant to Judgement. However, that probably doesn't cover harrassment they feel is merited. The harrassee seldom feels that way. Earl ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 16:59:14 -0500 From: Setzer Gabbiani Subject: Re: IN> Pandora's box At 10:05 12/2/98 -0500, you wrote: >There are a couple of reasons Hope may have been left in >Pandora's box, both depressive. Hesiod, one of the earliest >tellers of that tale, was a very bitter, pessimistic person, >from what I gather, and may have had Hope stay in pandora's >box either as a way of saying "We have all these ills and >are denied hope" or, even more pessimistically, "We have all >these ills, but at least we don't have the additional evil >of illusory hope." Whee. > >Earl > >P.S.: There is the more convoluted symbolism of "We are assailed >by all these ills from without, but we still retain hope," which >is (1) not much like Hesiod, from what I gather, and (2) rather >muddled imagery, but it is another possibility. > it isn't like hesiod at all but then hesiod is about as hopeful as your average nihilist Ben C.O.D. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 14:33:38 -0800 From: Greg Jensen Subject: Re: Nybbas non-evil? (was Re: IN> Atheists in IN) At 11:06 PM 12/1/98 -0800, you wrote: >I've not run (or played) Planescape, but if I did it would be under GURPS >rules. (Like many non-AD&D players, I have serious issues with the AD&D >rules; I haven't even read the 2nd edition, but I don't think it fixed most >of my issues.) I know that there are some who abhor the Planescape setting, >but I think it's interesting. The only thing that bugs me about it is that >the (stilted) AD&D alignment system comes through just a little too clearly. >IMHO, you don't need alignments at all to have Planescape make sense. >However, some of the character of the border towns is a little too >one-dimensional, screaming out their alignments. FWIW, I run a Planescape game, and I also have a FAQ about alignments on my home page that I feel clears up many of the problems people have with the system (at http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~gjensen/alignfaq.htm). I can relate this because of my dilemma about IN and ethics. In an AD&D crossover with IN, would all angels be of Good alignment and all demons of Evil alignment? Or is there enough room for variation that either could stray easily to neutral (or further)? For example, in Planescape, a new affiliation was introduced called factions for PCs, which were organizations with specific philosophical ideas that granted special benefits. One good example is the Fated faction. Factions rarely revolve around alignment, focusing on other philosophical ideals, and members of the Fated can be any alignment but lawful good (and even that could happen). The Fated all believe that some people are destined to rule and some are destined to be ruled. If you have the power to take something from somebody else, they don't deserve to ahve it. They are absolutely forbidden from ever giving or accepting any form of charity. So how can they ever be good? It is possible, by advocating tough love, and trying to see to it that people truly get what they deserve (instead of hand-outs). It's difficult for me to sometimes see how good Fated can work, but it is possible. So I'm wondering if, in a similar vein, demons might be able to be "good" (or at least not evil) with a wide enough stretch of the imagination? Greg Jensen http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~gjensen/gregpage.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 14:38:05 PST From: "Janet Anderson" Subject: IN> Testing Does this thing work? Janet Anderson ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 98 17:42 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... >I'm curious though (can't tell who wrote the original post here. Walter?) Yep. >If you don't like Supers or Horror type games, then what _did_ attract you >to IN? Interesting question, and not entirely easy to answer.... I suppose it's easier to answer that with a negative -- while all three are somewhat similar in the aspect that they typically involve ultra-powerful beings with weird supernatural powers, they differ a lot in the core "feel". Horror, as I see it, is primarily concerned with evoking feelings of dread and fear. The supers genre seems to be mostly about beating up bad guys (or good guys, or maybe just anyone) and causing lots of collateral damage -- i.e., it's about being feeling powerful. IN seems to me to mostly be about moral and ethical issues, and hard choices. > Do you still see it in the supplements? Um. Er. I didn't see it all that much in parts of the main book. To tell you the truth, the Superiors writeups (especially the expanded ones) are what I most like in IN. I don't pay much attention to the adventures. I was amused by the LA character stuff, but my own games run to much less dysfunctional people (PCs *and* NPCs). Frankly, I don't seem much difference between the tone of the LA characters and those in NM or even the core book -- they're all pretty uniformly dysfunctional, with few if any exceptions. Of course, I hate angst, so that may have something to do with my opinion.... I suppose I may have originally liked the concept of IN as something that offered interesting ethical and moral dilemmas without getting mired in doom and angst. (Of course, the Revelations cycle adventures were fairly big on going for doom and angst....) - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 98 17:56 EST From: Walter Milliken Subject: Re: IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... >Me too that way, which struck me as really bizarre. In Nomine is >basically a religous based SuperHeros - SuperVillians game with some >serious overtones of horror. If you don't like either one, then why play >it? Well, the horror is definitely optional (I tend more toward being appalled or outraged by demonic behavior, rather than horrified... though horror is certainly possible). The game isn't really about being scary, at least as I see it, so that pulls it out of horror (though Smif's art tends toward the horror-aspected). As to its being a supers sort of game, I suppose that is in a way. But you could say much the same about heavy-magic fantasy or high-tech SF games -- special people running around with high-energy abilities capable of lots of collateral damage.... Also, it's probably partly an age bias -- I grew up in the late 50s and 60s, before anti-heros and angst invaded the comics. So my view of the supers genre is pretty much the old "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" stuff. Which I thought was rather silly even when I was a kid. Covert angels and demons may not be any less improbable, but they don't go around tossing cars around and being zapped by mystery energy rays invented by villians with IQs that could be counted on their fingers. Note that I have nothing against "silly" games -- I just don't take them seriously, the way most of the supers-genre games were promoted. - ---Walter ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 15:04:33 -0800 From: Greg Jensen Subject: Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs At 04:48 PM 12/2/98 -0500, you wrote: >Jo Hart wrote: > >> Which would be fine if Judgement never engaged in ethically dubious >> behaviour either ;) > >Yeah, you'd think this wouldn't be a problem with *angels*, for >Pete's sake. Good think over-punishing is dissonant to >Judgement. However, that probably doesn't cover harrassment >they feel is merited. The harrassee seldom feels that way. My problem with Dominic and his forces is who decides what is overpunishing and what isn't? Dominic, IMO, is more concerned about law than justice. True, if you haven't broken any laws, you won't get punished. But what if the law itself is unjust? Where does Dominic stand on civil disobedience? The way I see him, he would not accept Martin Luther King, Jr.'s or Gandhi's "excuses" for breaking the law. They knew the law, they knew the penalty, their punishment is fair. I disagree. One way to run Dominicians (is that right?) is that they really do only go for an "eye for an eye" kind of punishment. If you steal, they'll steal from you. If you hurt somebody, they will hurt you. If you kill, you die. But what about victimless crimes? If you do drugs or forget to wear a veil in public or have impure thoughts, how does one punish that in a way that fits the "crime?" Greg Jensen http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~gjensen/gregpage.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:43:36 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Santa Claus >>>Isn't Santa Claus [Other than being Saint Nicholas] Just a collection of Christopher's Malakim. After all he Knows when you've been bad, he knows when you've been good?<<< Actually, the modern Santa Claus is a creation of Mammon (with a little help from Nybbas). An example of a successful perversion of a more benevolent original idea. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:43:41 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Faith and Atheists >>>Such a person might not necessarily offend a non-rag-headed version of Khalid, since it doesn't automatically imply lack of any faith. Huxley, for example, had a lot of faith in Darwin, and was his biggest defender.<<< I think it should be pointed out that Khalid, rag-headed incarnation or otherwise, while being the Archangel of Faith, isn't necessarily in favor of _any_ kind of faith. I mean, depending on how philosophical you get, we ALL have faith in certain things. I have faith that when I take my next breath, I will inhale oxygen and not methane. I have faith that China exists, though I've never been there. I have faith that the moon is not filled with creamy vanilla frosting, though that can't be proved at this time. Being somewhat less abstract, Khalid supports faith in things of God. (Yes, I know that his Invocation bonuses listing him as supporting faith in things like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny contradict this somewhat. I was _vehemently_ opposed to that when I saw the first draft, and I was told it would probably be changed. It wasn't, alas.) Khalid doesn't support _every_ product of human faith or anything that leads to human faith, just as Michael doesn't support _every_ act of war and Nybbas doesn't support everything media-related (since the media can be a force for good as well as evil). A "strong atheist" who has an absolute conviction that there is no God is definitely evincing faith, but it's not the kind of faith Khalid endorses...quite the contrary. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 18:43:46 -0500 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> Game "coolness" meta-theory continues.... >>>And many of those are on my list of stuff I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Different people like different stuff.<<< This statement deserves to be repeated, boldfaced, and printed in 24-point font. One of the things that I find immensely frustrating in these discussions is the seeming inability of gamers (all fans are guilty of this, but gamers especially) to recognize a difference between THEIR personal preferences and what makes a good product. "If I don't like it, it sucks, therefore it shouldn't have been published" seems to be the motto of far too many people. It's fine to express your personal preferences, but to constantly rant and froth and post messages calculated to offend and aggravate based on the fact that YOU don't want to see X in In Nomine, and screw all those ignorant tasteless fools who do.... Well, this was going to be a rather lengthier rant of my own, but I'll leave it at that. - -David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 19:21:46 -0600 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Interior Artwork Patrick O'Duffy wrote: > I've actually quite fond of Dan Smith's art. It's cartoony, which I > like, and covers a lot of different styles of characters. I like it, too; I just don't think it's appropriate for _this_ game. I'd love to see him doing Champions stuff, though thinking it might happen would imply that I think the folks at Hero Games can tell a good idea from a case of the measles. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 19:54:14 -0600 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs Greg Jensen wrote: > My problem with Dominic and his forces is who decides what is overpunishing > and what isn't? Dominic, IMO, is more concerned about law than justice. > True, if you haven't broken any laws, you won't get punished. But what if > the law itself is unjust? Where does Dominic stand on civil disobedience? > The way I see him, he would not accept Martin Luther King, Jr.'s or > Gandhi's "excuses" for breaking the law. They knew the law, they knew the > penalty, their punishment is fair. I disagree. One way to run Dominicians > (is that right?) is that they really do only go for an "eye for an eye" > kind of punishment. If you steal, they'll steal from you. If you hurt > somebody, they will hurt you. If you kill, you die. But what about > victimless crimes? If you do drugs or forget to wear a veil in public or > have impure thoughts, how does one punish that in a way that fits the "crime?" This isn't right, at least going by the published material. It explicitly says that Dominic favors justice over law, and certainly considers _human_ laws to be unimportant. And since divine law (in IN) is pretty much uncodified, servitors of Judgement have to go by feel, meaning that their interpretation of justice is one of the primary considerations. Since God does occasionally act in a way that makes his own wishes known (as in the trials of Michael and Uriel), there is also a limited body of precedent to work from. And there is always the goal of prevention, this being the main worry concerning Eli. In the end, though, this means that Judgement is largely working on a case by case basis. The major question is whether Dominic (and by extension, his servitors) have any sort of special insight into what the right and just path is, i.e. can their Judgement be trusted almost infallibly? This is a question I expect and hope will remain CDaU. My conception is that, while Dominic has his resonanceto tell him what the facts are and a lot of experience to call on, he does not have a pipeline to always knowing what is Justice and Right. He has to use his judgement (small "j" on that one) and run the risk of being wrong. This doesn't necessarily mean taking dissonance; for me, an honest and thorough attempt at being just will usually suffice, particularly since Dominic is the one that helped create the dissonance restrictions. Deep down, though, he knows that he isn't always going to comprehend God's will entirely, but he keeps maintains a facade of absolute assurance both to foster confidence among the Host and to mask his own worry. So he is often inflexible and doctrinaire. And in moments of crisis (like the conclusion of the FotM adventure) he can become frantic and a bit panicky. I suspect that he remains a bit intimidated by Michael, who has the absolute self-confidence that Dominic's Word denies him. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 17:55:07 -0800 From: Greg Jensen Subject: Re: IN> Santa Claus At 06:43 PM 12/2/98 -0500, you wrote: >Actually, the modern Santa Claus is a creation of Mammon (with a little >help from Nybbas). An example of a successful perversion of a more >benevolent original idea. Now, now, he could just as easily be a creation of Marc. BTW, how about a tether in the North Pole? One final point, what about the connections between Santa Claus and pagan gods (such as Odin)? Greg Jensen http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~gjensen/gregpage.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 18:41:49 -0800 From: "Kelly St.Clair" Subject: Re: IN> REVIEW: Rev V - Final Trumpet >Actually, my opinion is that if the storyline in Fall of the Malakim and The >Final Trumpet were better written and fleshed out a great deal, they would be >a good basis for a novel, or perhaps a trilogy. (though this would take a >great deal of fleshing out, subplots and so forth) It's probably too late to >actually do that though, since the plot is so well known by now, but I will >say that if anyone does write an In Nomine novel, I'd probably buy it, just >because. Unfortunately, while I don't know the details, I'm given to understand that SJG's licensing agreement with the authors of the original French game prohibit exactly what you propose. No fiction, just gamebooks (with bits of fiction in them). There are several people who'd suggest that what we've seen so far in the way of IN supplements is the result of frustrated authors trying to package their cool fiction ideas as adventures. Many plots that work fine in a novel do not translate well to an interactive medium such as RPGs. - -------------- Kelly St.Clair kellys@efn.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 22:37:41 -0500 (EST) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN There's a LOT of potential here; I like it. In fact, I can see this as being a campaign for now...the preparation for the first REAL space station of its kind. The players could be involved from the beginning; just affecting the outcome of this project alone would make for an interesting game.... - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 21:50:16 -0700 (MST) From: Jason Corley Subject: Defending Dominic (Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs) On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, Greg Jensen wrote: > At 04:48 PM 12/2/98 -0500, you wrote: > >Yeah, you'd think this wouldn't be a problem with *angels*, for > >Pete's sake. Good think over-punishing is dissonant to > >Judgement. However, that probably doesn't cover harrassment > >they feel is merited. The harrassee seldom feels that way. > > My problem with Dominic and his forces is who decides what is overpunishing > and what isn't? Dominic, IMO, is more concerned about law than justice. Nay nay - judgment, good judgment, demands that justice be paramount. Law is a tool and nothing more. > True, if you haven't broken any laws, you won't get punished. But what if > the law itself is unjust? Where does Dominic stand on civil disobedience? > The way I see him, he would not accept Martin Luther King, Jr.'s or > Gandhi's "excuses" for breaking the law. They knew the law, they knew the > penalty, their punishment is fair. I disagree. Aha - the old double standard rears its head. In one sense their punishment -was- fair and they knew it. Under the unjust laws they were breaking, they were entitled to prison and/or worse. However, they accept this punishment as a means to point out the unjustness of the law. That kind of sacrifice just cannot go un-lauded in Heaven, which, after all, loves martyrs. Dominic was probably chanting "right on" with the rest of them. The goal is eminently important to knowing whether an earthly judgment was right or wrong. In fact, what Dominic's servitors biggest jobs with respect to any judicial system probably is is catching all the things that fall through the cracks - the guilty defendants who get away because the evidence isn't found or can't be admitted in court, the innocent who are entrapped by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that kind of thing. Laws are important, but it's gotta be -perfect- law for Heaven to be satisfied with it. ("Those darn monkeys screw everything up!") For particularly corrupt legal and political systems, Dominic's people probably actively try to reform or even overthrow them - demons of course run rampant therein. Don't try to tell me Tammany Hall wasn't feeding Malphas constantly, day in and day out... > One way to run Dominicians > (is that right?) is that they really do only go for an "eye for an eye" > kind of punishment. If you steal, they'll steal from you. If you hurt > somebody, they will hurt you. If you kill, you die. But what about > victimless crimes? If you do drugs or forget to wear a veil in public or > have impure thoughts, how does one punish that in a way that fits the "crime?" Two ways to look at it: 1) Truly "victimless crimes" just are irrelevant to heaven. Just because the monkeys get their panties in a bunch about something doesn't mean that judgment has to. Not every human activity is going to be recorded in the ledger of their souls as good or evil. 2) However, crimes in which -the perpetrator is also the victim- (for example, regular heroin use, self-loathing, aforementioned impure thoughts that stop them from behaving in a way they know they should), Judgment (and indeed all of Heaven) is going to try to fix somehow. The hard part is fixing it in a way that isn't 'cheating'. Anyone can sing a Song or two, but to really change someone takes a light touch. Jason onwards ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 01:23:55 EST From: Akumsa@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Arcangeles - an SF setting for IN I like it, a Nice mix of SF and In Nomine. Well done. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 01:24:37 EST From: Akumsa@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Testing In a message dated 12/2/98 5:51:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, dorigen@hotmail.com writes: << Does this thing work? Janet Anderson >> Nope. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 01:27:44 EST From: Akumsa@aol.com Subject: Re: Defending Dominic (Re: IN> Enforced Morality in Choirs) In a message dated 12/2/98 11:57:53 PM Eastern Standard Time, corleyj@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu writes: << 2) However, crimes in which -the perpetrator is also the victim- (for example, regular heroin use, self-loathing, aforementioned impure thoughts that stop them from behaving in a way they know they should), Judgment (and indeed all of Heaven) is going to try to fix somehow. The hard part is fixing it in a way that isn't 'cheating'. Anyone can sing a Song or two, but to really change someone takes a light touch. >> Which I personally dont think Dominic Has, he strikes me as a more of 'In Youre Face' type AA. For missions like that, you need something less obvious, Like Flowers or Creation. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #1033 ******************************** The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.