RulingNations@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 5/30/04 11:09:43 AM Mountain Daylight Time, >juha.vesanto@iki.fi writes: > > > >>Secondly, I have to agree with Andrew. At least the spread of Islam is >>not a typical, but an extreme, example of the spread of a religion. >> >> > >Then what would you consider typical? What historical religion, relevant >to Exquaestio's situation, has had increased difficulty gaining converts >simply due to their growth? > > > I think that a part of the problem is that the existing rules for societal expansion are designed for nation-states, not religions or other NGOs. Nation-states do find it harder to grow as they grow; IIRC it's something like a logarithmic curve, starting out very quickly and then decelerating over time. With nations, one of the limits on growth is the speed of communication. As a society expands to occupy more and more area, the communications lag between the core and the fringe eventually reaches a point where the society becomes so large it fractures; witness the Roman Empire. There are other factors, of course, but communication lag is important. That's why all the great empires of history, with the notable exception of Pharonic Egypt and Imperial Russia, have been great road builders: good roads allow the rulers to project their power and communicate quickly. Egypt didn't build many roads because they used the Nile; as for Russia, the Tsars and the Soviets kept most of their roads unpaved because from their point of view, roads were not so much tools for internal control as they were pathways for invaders. Communication lag in our world has posed similar problems for religions: witness the factions and heresies of Christianity, and the change in Buddhism as one moves from India, to Nepal, to Tibet, to China, to Japan. However, at present, this communications lag should not be as much of a problem for Exquaestio, assuming they have a magical means of rapid communication. The reason why the current rules don't really work for describing Exquaestio's expansion is that they appear to assume that when a society grows in Scope, it's gaining members _and land_. Exquaestio is trying to gain members, but unless I've missed something, at the moment, you're almost exclusively working in the Free Cities, so you're not trying to grab land. In other words, for a nation, it's not the gaining of population that makes expansion in Scope harder the bigger a society already is; it's the acquiring of the land and resources to support the increase in population that makes the difficulty. So, since Exquaestio's newly recruited members are, presumably, still citizens of whichever Free City they live in, Exquaestio doesn't need to worry about supporting those new members as a nation would have to worry.>Local and ethnic religions like Judaism and Sikhism have no relevance to >the existing circumstances. Religions based on personally following a >particular religious leader are also irrelevant. > > > This may be a stupid question, but why are they irrelevant, exactly? >So, by dismissing Buddhism and Islam and not giving any further >guidelines you are saying, "There's no such thing as a typical religion >and you're going to have to read my mind." > > > Well, I don't know what Juuso thinks, but I'd say "Yes, there is no such thing as a typical religion." As far as the first tier are concerned, in every case, unique circumstances propelled them on to the world stage. For many of them, their success depended on the right person being in the right place at the right time. You can't say that "Such-and-so is a neccessary requirement for a religion to become great," because the role of chance is too great and cannot be ignored. The great religions all have unique stories; only in the little religions can you make predictions and generalizations. I may not be clear about this, but then, religion is a subject about which clarity is difficult. >>RulingNations@aol.com wrote: >> >> >>>>If Exquaestio wants to increase their numbers, the best way would be, I >>>>think, to target the power players in the Free Cities, and work from >>>>the top down, rather than the bottom up. >>>> >>>> >>>And how are they to do that without an existing power base? >>> >>> >> >>Use your fudge points. The game system tries to emulate the typical way >>historical events go, and depends on extreme dice rolls for the events >>that really break historical continuity from the expected pattern. >>Unfortunately for the players, the high rolls (+4...) are very rare. For >>this reason exactly, double/triple/.. actions and the fudge points allow >>the players to tweak the chances to their favor in crucial actions. >> >> > >Let me get this straight. You think that I should use Fudge Points to >raise an Epic (-4) task? I apologize for the rudeness, but it would be >stupid to waste Fudge Points that way. > > > That's what Fudge points are there for. If you have an action, that by rights should fail, you use your Fudge Points to make it succeed. Sometimes, the Universe blinks, and the longshot comes up. As far as wasting them goes, you can always earn more. The real waste is earning them, but not using them. Personally, I think it might not be a bad idea to either put a cap on the maximum number of Fudge Points a player can have in their pool, or, alternatively, a "use it or lose it" rule whereby if you sit on your Fudge Points too long, they "leak" out--the window of opportunity slipping away. >>You have 9 FP:s. By making a double action (+1), and using 8 FP:s (for >>a roll of ++++, and possibility for an open-ended result), you can >>ensure a net result of at least +5 minus the difficulty. Spend that >>on an action to target the upper levels of the society, and you have >>the power base. >> >> > > > >>It would not hurt if you had something to offer for the >>rulers also (Protestant Christianity gained large support among the >>ruling class as soon as they realized that it gave them an excuse to rip >>off the monasteries). >> >> > >I have stated and restated what Exquaestio offers. Since those >statements were ignored I have had no choice except to use actions to >state what those offers are. Since by decreasing the rate of growth you >have given me fewer actions those definitions come extremely slowly. > > > Again, you probably mentioned this before, but what does Exquaestio offer converts? I only ask because there was a period a few months ago when Yahoo! was dumping about half the messages from the list into my Bulk E-mail folder, and I might have missed that particular posting. Andrew Janssen >Jefferson (Exquaestio) >http://www.picotech.net/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/ >---------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
