Help with faith

[Ghostfreak]

A few questions that I would appreciate to get an answer too. The first being is it worth investing refresh into stunts like devout words or blessed words for a character with a conviction of 4? If not then can you please explain why?


Second question, could someone help me better understand faith and its limits in the drpg?

Can someone with a high conviction consecrate an object? Whether it be an weapon, personal item, etc. Like say I want to consecrate a collapsible baton to better fight a vampire or things weak to faith.

[Sanctaphrax]

Devout words seems decent. Blessed Words I'm not too impressed by. Letting you block physical attacks with Conviction is a genuinely new capability; letting you make a taggable Aspect with it isn't. Unless your GM lets you get a bit supernatural with the effects of your prayers.

Like most Catch-related things, exactly what's holy enough to beat the Toughness of (for example) a vampire is not really nailed-down rules-wise. If I was GMing, I'd probably let you consecrate a baton with appropriate ceremonies and a mundane Conviction roll. Wouldn't be something you could do casually, though.

[narphoenix]

Like most Catch-related things, exactly what's holy enough to beat the Toughness of (for example) a vampire is not really nailed-down rules-wise. If I was GMing, I'd probably let you consecrate a baton with appropriate ceremonies and a mundane Conviction roll. Wouldn't be something you could do casually, though.

Here's a weird thought. Islam doesn't have a lot of symbols (it's a whole thing), but the first verses of the Qur'an that were revealed talk about how God taught humans with a pen. Would you let a sufficiently devout Muslim just pull out a pen and start warding off a vampire with it?

[Ghostfreak]

Now that is an interesting thought. Though to be honest in the world of Dresden; faith has always struck me as a bit weird and off. I mean I get why Michael has faith powers, because he believes in God and love. As well as his family. Shiro being a baptist by technicality is also easy to digest; and Sanya is the only one who is a black sheep among the three but does not make him any less important. The reason I asked this question is because the rule book is not exactly clear and concise on the whole belief is its own power. Only that it has to be pure, true, sincere faith.

Does that mean that someone who believes in something as simple as the quote "life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness" qualify? Or perhaps Miyamoto Musashi's “Get beyond love and grief: exist for the good of Man.”, "No Fear, No Hesitation, No Surprise, No Doubt" or maybe even his whole respect Budda and the gods but don't rely on them to bail you out during battle? How far does this belief stuff go?

[Sanctaphrax]

It's not totally clear how True Faith works, but it's definitely not just internal to the believers. The White God, whatever it is, clearly exists and exerts real power through its angels.

Picking an example at semi-random, Shiro didn't get his powers from being a Baptist. He got them because God (or perhaps his angels) decided to give them to him. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone with True Faith was in a similar boat. But for game purposes I'd totally allow a character to take Righteousness fuelled by their belief in the American way or whatever; whether or not it's what Butcher intended, it'll work fine in play.

If you ask me, the big mystery of True Faith is what exactly God is. The actual-factual miracles in the story make a number of real-life theological controversies a lot harder to answer.

I'm not really sure it's possible to discuss that topic without getting into touchy territory, though. Had a whole thing written out on the topic and deleted it because it was mostly applicable to real-world religion as well as Dresdenverse religion.

Here's a weird thought. Islam doesn't have a lot of symbols (it's a whole thing), but the first verses of the Qur'an that were revealed talk about how God taught humans with a pen. Would you let a sufficiently devout Muslim just pull out a pen and start warding off a vampire with it?

I'd allow it. It's not mechanically overpowered or religiously offensive, so why not?

[whitelaughter]

In the books, the original 3 knights of the Cross are descended from the original wielders of the blades, and this is supposed to be important. (real world, everybody is descended from everybody; go back 10 generations and you have 1024 ancestors in that generation, you only have to go back a few millennia to get people from whom *everybody* is descended).

Both books and rule books reference the power of the belief of large numbers of people - the Swords are referred to in the rule book as being a focus for the belief of the 2 billion+ Christians on the planet, Butters gets an upgraded blade thanks to the number of Star Wars fans on the planet. (which would imply that it isn't 'belief' per se, so much as mental interest; perhaps from a rules perspective, the number of Fate points spent on the obsession).
I suspect that who can use the Swords and what actions they will tolerate are dependent on the current beliefs of the people powering them; so that a millennia ago, none of the current wielders would have been acceptable, but the blade would have been quite happy to cut down Nicodemus (as he had just ordered a murder). That would allow for a long term plot of Nicodemus trying to change the Christian worldview sufficiently for him to wield the sword.

[g33k]

... The reason I asked this question is because the rule book is not exactly clear and concise on the whole belief is its own power. Only that it has to be pure, true, sincere faith.

... How far does this belief stuff go?

I believe that both JB and EH intend this to remain ambiguous.

If readers/players want to consider The Almighty as being more-or-less Biblically accurate, and all this "White God" stuff as no more than folks being too frightened to face the Truth... they can do so; and the books (both EH rpg and JB stories) will never absolutely contradict the Good Book.

If readers/players want to consider the White God as a REALLY potent entity mostly by virtue of all those True Believers, the books will never absolutely confirm any "truth" to the "Almighty-ness" of Yahweh/Jehovah.

Either will work as a conceptual framework for reading, or for RP'ing.  The only real problem comes when 2 people in the same game "need" for opposite "truths" to be True in the game...


 

[Ghostfreak]

You bring a valuable point. Thank you guys so much, you've made it much easier to consider what sort of thing a character can have faith in. In order to make it a near physical force on the world because I wasn't to sure if I liked how the rule book had it. As it made it extremely iffy. But your wisdom just continues to shine on through. I am glad to get a second opinion on the matter. An unlike others I am not sensitive when it comes to the topic of religion or one's faith. I'd just found it weird that someone can believe in a concept like communism and that gives them justification to get faith powers. Not that there is anything wrong with it; just sounds weird to me.

[g33k]

You bring a valuable point. Thank you guys so much, you've made it much easier to consider what sort of thing a character can have faith in. In order to make it a near physical force on the world because I wasn't to sure if I liked how the rule book had it. As it made it extremely iffy. But your wisdom just continues to shine on through. I am glad to get a second opinion on the matter. An unlike others I am not sensitive when it comes to the topic of religion or one's faith. I'd just found it weird that someone can believe in a concept like communism and that gives them justification to get faith powers. Not that there is anything wrong with it; just sounds weird to me.

So long as everyone at the same table has a  same-enough  understanding of the mechanics and the setting, and having fun... everyone at that table is "playing it right."

Even if none of it would have Jim Butcher or Evil Hat say, "yeah, that's right."

[vultur]

It's not totally clear how True Faith works, but it's definitely not just internal to the believers. The White God, whatever it is, clearly exists and exerts real power through its angels.

Well, things like Knights of the Cross are clearly affiliated with actual angelic powers, yeah. So True Faith (the Supernatural Powers category), I'd probably agree. But what counts for faith/holy Catches seems to be broader.

Harry is able to repel Red and Black Court vampires with his faith in magic and its proper use, even though he explicitly doesn't view it as a religion such as Wicca, etc., and he certainly (in game terms) doesn't have any True Faith powers on his character sheet.

[whitelaughter]

Harry is able to repel Red and Black Court vampires with his faith in magic and its proper use, even though he explicitly doesn't view it as a religion such as Wicca, etc., and he certainly (in game terms) doesn't have any True Faith powers on his character sheet.

Although it hardly surprising that a vampire has a different take on what faith is than say, a Knight! 
There's no particular reason why faith-Catches need to be identical for different beasties, it would boil down to *why* is the beastie vulnerable to faith.