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Game with God
Andrew writes "GamerDad has an article up about how religion is handled in computer gaming, titled 'Game With God'. The article features quotes from Sid Meier, Jane Jensen, Will Wright, Peter Molyneaux, Phil Steinmeyer, and Richard Garriott. Here's a snippet: 'While religion and spirituality add a lot to a game world, they often aren't used effectively. 'I don't think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level,'; says Firaxis founder and Civilization creator Sid Meier. PopTop Software's Phil Steinmeyer agrees, noting that 'Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it's wildly caricatured.'"
"don't think there are any games that treat religion at anything more than a superficial level,"
In Black and White you ARE god.
The game covers everything from how many ppl warship you to weather they build you a temple...
Plus being god, you get toset the rule or "morals" of your ppl.
What's the typical action flick treatment of religion? Barely existent if at all, and usually just an excuse to give people cool special powers.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
I would state that not only is religion handled "ineffectively" in most games, but between the wish to be politically correct and catering to the predominantly anti-christian sentiments in the gaming community most games end up being downright disdainful of christianity.
What is worse is the fact that most games put out by christians fall into one of two categories; blatant propaganda which is more concerned with pushing a message than with providing an enjoyable gaming experience, and "fluff" mostly written for children.
What the christian community urgently needs is a development company to emerge which can balance both the needs of the gospel, and the needs of the game playing experience.
I always thought of games as escapism. Many wouldn't define religion as escapism, or at least those that strictly adhere to their faith.
To me, the two do not mix well.
YMMV
Run through the tech tree, then go for Fundamentalisim. There repercussions for that form of government were far outclassed by the *amazing* ability to build wealth and power for your fight against the infidels.
Yup. Not portrayed realistically at all.
So, is this yet another case of game designers trying to imitate the real world too closely?
-- MarkusQ
In Japan, religion is often portrayed quite heavily in games. Japan in general has a more liberal relationship with religion than the western world, and works of fiction aren't really lynched for not showing the church in a good light.
If you want some GOOD examples of religion in games, try Xenogears, Grandia, or Tales of Symphonia. All quite good games that deal with religion quite heavily. In the case of Xenogears, it was almost not released in North America, as the church would consider it to be almost blasphemous.
For a North American game dealing slightly more than average with religion... try Eternal Darkness. The game features a bit of the inquisition, and the main characters are using magick based a lot upon the pagan practices and rituals. I would guess that the church would be none too happy about this one either.
As long as the gods in nethack are pleased, I'm fine with it.
Chess has bishops
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
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Using (or abusing) religion in certain ways manner way adds significant shock value to entertainment. People (in the US at least) are generally taken back by what they perceive as evil religious symbols or inverted ones from the mainstream. A prime example of this is Doom. I think most people feel more freaked out when they walk down a hallway and see certain symbols on the walls. Anime does this a lot too. Evangelion, for example, draws from mythology that is very recognizable to most Christians and it can be very disturbing for some.
Whether any of this is good or bad is not my concern, but I will say that it is getting very annoying. Religious nerves have been plucked far too much by a lot of entertainment and usually it's use just signals a great lack of creativity. If you really want to unsettle or disturb your playing or viewing audience, try to come up with something new.
Why bother.
Semi-serious? That's just an artifact of the youth of the medium and the lack of a real artistic indie segment.
There's nothing about the gaming medium itself that is semi-serious. It's perfectly capable of tackling any topic just as well as narrative fiction on celluloid or page.
Calling the medium semi-serious as of now is an unfortunate but true overview, but implying the medium is incapable of more is shortsighted and wrong.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
A "serious treatment" of religion is not needed in games. Maybe in a form of edutainment, but not a game! Do you want to play SimWorshipper, where you choose your religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Christian, and Jew, with Sikhs and Wicca forthcoming in an expansion pack) whereby you must go to synagogue/church/mosque once a week, or click to use the prayer mat, or else sit outside and meditate with nature? Then after 20 game-years have elapsed, you start trying to convince your game children to marry within the religion? Of course, we could always do "The Passion of the Christ, the officially licensed game," and give Icon Entertainment another few hundred million dollars, allowing you to be beaten for an hour and try to still stay alive by mashing the circle button. You could also argue there's been no real treatment of "sex" in video games either. Let's make a realistic sex game where the sheets smell and you have to do laundry, you have to rummage through your underwear drawer for condoms, and your roommate comes home in the middle and you have to suddenly get quiet! No thanks. Games don't have to address everything. They're supposed to be FUN.
Who'se AI programming could be considered good enough to simulate God? How would God come into play in, say, Doom3 or The Sims? Do you lose if you are sinful?
I like games where I am god. And if the villagers didn't like it, they got a thrown in the ocean!
Or I'd feed them to my creature.
If reality was like Slashdot, most people would be (-1) Redundant.
Oh please. These must be really weird times, when people even _think_ about putting spirituality in games.
Games unite people. Religion separates people.
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left.
There's plenty of imagination of what the God-role might be in a computer game. I'm not a big fan of Andrew Greeley, but he did stake out this turf in The God Game a decade ago. Or, for a high metafictional take on a real-life role-playing game with a godlike director, there's John Fowles's The Magus. And I suppose the best Death-of-God Game would have to be Lucky Wander Boy by D. B. Weiss.
How about Billy Graham's Bible Blasters?
Jewish mysticism has been only peripherally explored by Japanese game designers (quick example: what's a "Sephiroth"?) and mostly as window-dressing.
Also, Catholic priests are, broadly viewed, the basis for D&D clerics.
Both the Kabala and early Christian mysticism are rich footings from which to explore religious concepts in a game- I think they're mostly ignored by Americans because it's easy to offend people that way- which is fair enough.
However, I think a game based around the book of Revelations would be utterly awesome (perhaps an adaptation of "Left Behind"? I don't think much of apocalyptic stuff but it would sure make a good game.)
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the religious concepts you grew up with aren't very interesting and don't have any real mysteries to explore. But even a cursory review of what's out there (ever hear of the gospel of Thomas?) reveals a great deal.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
All religions I know of assume the existence of another, spiritual, universe that's truly important, compared to our material universe, which is considered more or less irrelevant. Their reasoning goes more or less like "we do not have to worry about this life, eventually we will all die, so we should be more concerned about what comes after death."
But that assumes the existence of that unproved afterlife. What if it doesn't exist? What if this life is our only chance and, once it ends, everything is over for us? To refuse to even contemplate this possibility is the Mother Of All Escapisms.
I would love to see Alien -vs- Predator -vs- GOD
I think you'll find that a very outspoken minority of Slashdotters worship Ayn Rand.
The Fellowship in Ultima VII The Black Gate has detailed rituals, songs, example services, etc... You even get to go through the initiation rituals to join at one point and interact with other believers and hear stories about how it's affected their virtual lives.
"Religion is ignored in gaming, or if it is portrayed, it's wildly caricatured."
Insert *any* substantive intellectual or philosophical topic in place of "religion" and that sentence almost always holds true. They're *games*, they're not meant to provide truly rigorous analysis but rather to entertain.
The only game I can think of that has some rather sophisticated references to religious and philosophical concepts is Xenosaga (and presumably the prequel Xenogears, though I've not played it), but even then it's nowhere near as deep or intellectually stimulating as a good book.
So while this is not a hard and fast rule, I would say that the vast majority of games are, well, just entertainment. Very few games truly broach into what I would consider art or substantive dialogue.
In a country where groups got together to burn Harry Potter books because they "taught kids to be witches and wizards," can you *blame* game creators for trying to tiptoe around religion?
Why is it any surprise that games only portray religion on a superficial level? The vast majority of people I know are only superficially religious. Christians may say they are such, but they don't live every day as if they were following the path Christ laid out for them. Rather, they attend church once in a while - usually on major holidays - and wear crosses. At most, they slap a bumpersticker on their car or a sign in their window proclaiming their faith.
Many games include an aspect of religion or spirituality - though it is seldom Christian. An underlying theme of good vs. evil is spiritual in nature. Most RPGs have the idea of heroes guided by destiny often based on a prophecy. Many adventure games like Tomb Raider delve into the spiritual beliefs of ancient cultures.
Actually, as I read that article I realized that the author is more interested in seeing games that make Christianity the emphasis. That might appeal to some people, but there would be a fairly good-sized market it would turn away UNLESS the gameplay and story were otherwise engaging. Most people don't listen to Christian music for the lyrics if the music and singing are poor. Likewise, few would play a game just because it involve Christian beliefs and activities if the gameplay and story were so-so.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Vid games are market driven products. If there were a market for religion in games, don't think for a second these corporations wouldn't have already tapped into that? It's because the majority of gamers, at least that I've encountered, don't believe in the organized religion that lives in our mainstream reality. Most gamers are science nuts, and science is about getting to the bottom of why we exist, something religion fiercely ignores. It may be worth a shot, but I doubt games diluted with religion will sell enough to carry it's own weight. However, games where there may be fictitious religions with better ideals and morals than the pathetic ones we're forced to hear about now may prove exciting and interesting.
The article falls flat on two fronts for me. The article assume that 1) religion means christianity 2)ethics are the sole domain of religion.
Outside of that particular pet peeve I would also argue that the article does not address the issue on its true scale: religion in mass media. Nor does it address the reason for the typically marginal role of religion in the mass media: there are a lot of people who either don't want to see it in that context(Christians included) or who do want to see it but can't agree on what it should look like.
Just looking at the miriad of splinter groups within the judeo-christian pantheon of religions and the innumerable hotly contested details that caused them to split in the first place should make it clear why a strongly religious game with mass appeal would be difficult to create. Now think in terms of the gaming demographic. That doesn't mean impossible, but outside of the occassional high production value rarity al-la Passion of Christ I wouldn't hold my breath.
And to get to the heart of the issue, is that really such a bad thing? Doesn't relying on video games to provide religion, education, ethical guidance, etc. simply mirror the TV as a baby sitter/parent problem?
And then only in English! In French at least, the name of that chess piece is litteraly translated to "Court Jester".
Delay is preferable to error. (Thomas Jefferson)
Does this mean we can get Windows removed from public schools?
Games have plenty of religion. Unreal Tournament 2004 would not be much fun if I couldn't be reincarnated every time I died.
I recall once seeing the moves expressed in terms of the powers of state (row/column moves) and church (diagonals).
- Foot soldiers/Pawns make progress through the authority of the state, but may only prevail in battle by the grace of God.
Any resemblance this has to why the rules are the way they are is, no doubt, purely coincidental-- but it's a servicable means to explain the moves to new players.Rooks/Castles, as the embodiment of worldly authority, are immensely powerful in matters temporal, but impotent in matters spiritual. Bishops, as the representatives of the Church, are the other way around.
The King and Queen are, British style, empowered with the authority of both church and state, and may elect to act with either as they choose. If you wonder why the queen seems more powerful, look to Elizabeth and Victoria. =)
And Knights, due to their holy vows to defend the right, must always act simultaneously under mandate of both church and state, thereby transcending any obstacles in their path.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Anyone remember this great old game? Now there's a game that has religion in it! Why, the player is god!
... if he could do THAT, then why am I the one gunning down all those monsters?
Actually, I'm thinking maybe this is part of the reason there's so little religion in games - quite often the gamer takes on the role of the supreme being. Like Sims. If the player isn't a god, I don't know what he is. Or Civ.
In the old times (maybe still, but definitely back in the day) some games "cheated" when you were playing against the computer. This was to make the game harder to beat, but it also became infinitely annoying. So in a sense the computer is god in a game, you know, the reason for it all. Or the programmer might be god. That means, writing god into a game will be like god creating a god for the game.
God in a game might be annoying - a super existence that can do anything in a flash
I guess though that maybe religion could be the theme of a game, rather than god... Maybe.
A game needs to be interactive, or it's not a game. Most religions are not interactive, rather, they come with a set of rules or suggestion for how to make your life better. You can't change it, well, not much. Maybe this is the problem.
You could configure the game to play by your favorite belief system.
What FFT did is actually a bit of a "stock plot" in regards to Japanese video game & anime stories that include a conspicuously Christian-modeled religion. Usually the political organization itself is criticized or portrayed as corrupt while the faith of the most devout worshippers is praised as being good. This is pretty consistent with the Japanese historical experience with Christianity and has a lot of precedent in Japanese literature from the early 20th century.
The Thief series of games is all about religion. The Builders, the Hammerites, Pegans, etc. The series doesn't hide the fact that they're poking fun at religion and showing how dangerous they can be, if taken too seriously.
The last time I went to Church, I fell asleep.
Then you went to a stupid church, and need to look for a different distributor.
"Church, the product" can meet the needs of many consumers (to continue the commercial theme). There is music, social interaction, and free coffee. Worship services and sermons are opportunities to deal with crucial social issues of the day, explore deeply spiritual and philosophical topics, and receive instruction on intimate psychological matters. Churches are also places where people can organize into collectives to further the social good--either directly, through projects of their own, or by rallying behind other organizations like Habitat for Humanity or Heifer Project. If the church you went to has lousy music, people, and coffee, doesn't challenge you intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and morally, and doesn't do worthwhile things for others, then you picked a crappy church.
I readily admit that there are indeed many crappy churches on the market, but I would ask for the concession that there may be non-crappy churches also. I've gone to several that contributed significantly to the lives of the people who showed up and the community around them.
Please don't paint everything and everyone with a single, broad brush. Your attitude is akin to having a bad experience at Sears and saying that all stores are bad, or shopping in general is bad. If you don't like the store, by all means, be a smart shopper and take your business elsewhere; don't decide to forswear shopping or malign all the stores that carry a similar product line.
C.S. Lewis and (to a point) Tolkien did much to show that religious themes can easily coexist with fiction. The endless "let's try it from scratch" 60s put a bit of a kabosh on that... experimenting in ideas of myth-religion without knowing how much they repeated in old fiction.
Frankly, I see "religion" is actually present in many many spheres... but a new establishment has arrived. It's just the pop-psyche (i.e. Oprah) plus bits-of-new-age psuedoscience that we've had tons of in the 20th century. (practice X does Y for your spiritual Z condition, take two and call me in the morning).
Religion in Babylon 5, for example, was one of the first beginnings of a good treatment in mass media... because believers at least showed some positive though vague devotion as part of a plot (monks at one point, and the Minbari otherwise).
Most scifi religion is incredibly shallow and made for outsiders, with the constant drum of "Hey man, don't get all religious about stuff cuz it all looks the same to us." moral-of-the-story.
Even that only started from the 50s and earlier when tons of minor religious divisions mirrored ethnic/cultural ones (i.e. blacks, whites, immigrants etc..). I knew one old lady who declared the One thing she knew about her Presbyterian church was that she wasn't Baptist. Yikes. That has always scared authors.
Anyway the writing can only occur when religion is handled in a fashion that doesn't get everyone spooked about the loudest minorities involved. Someone's got to stop caring about Pat Robertson and yet still know who Jesus (or Bhudda) was without a minor "survey of religions" class.
Besides, atheism/materialism keeps framing the discussion (e.g. Babylon 5 came down to assuming all "gods" were advanced races) and that forms a rift on how much you're even allowed to describe beliefs. It's tough to write plot about followers of God X or Y when the author makes clear that they're idiots doing something for no purpose or reason except the cuteness of "blind" idealism.
What's gotta happen is that some story writer somewhere has to first avoid the swashbuckling loot-and-horde-and-kill plot. Secondly they need to leave mystery about something Bigger having a role in the story instead of mere science-and-discovery explaining it all by the last 5 minutes.
If it's "universal harmony" that someone deals with (i.e. Ultima V) so be it, but if its God in any fashion it makes the plot and reality of behavior much richer. Yes it makes NPCs *much* more complex... and a score isn't just "gold" or "life" anymore. Deal! I want to see that happen.
We're at the effective top for polygon counts anyway. Someone has to *THINK* that fiction matters someday in a game.
Nietzsche is dead - God
Tell that to Augustine or Galileo, some of the greatest minds were devout followers of the church.
'The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell.' - St. Augustine
Last post!
As an avid anime watcher and RPG fan, I disagree about the whole "stock plot" issue. FF Tactics' plot was unusually complex (which actually turned a number of people I know off to the game). While many Japanese games and animes often have some Christian symbolic elements and the like, outside of Evangelion I can't think of any such case that has as strong of Christian elements, and none have as close of a parallel to real Christianity and its history as Tactics.
And the commentary on Christianity in Tactics is pretty harsh. Have you ever read the Germonik Scriptures? It basically presents an alternative to the Christian presentation of Jesus ("St. Ajora" in the game), and at the same time, the plot revolving around the scriptures is a close parallel to the Catholic Church's repression of banned books viewed as being against God in the middle ages. Likewise, the plot of Tactics itself, with the church manipulating nations and starting wars for its own advantage has clear historic parallels.
So, I have to strongly disagree about the "stock plot" phrase you used. If you find it to be a "stock plot", give another such example that, say, offers alternatives to the Christian view of the life of Jesus or has the main plot revolve around what is essentially the historical Catholic Church.
Windmills do not work that way!
Most religions, minus the people, are neither good nor bad.
Yeah, but that's about as meaningful as the NRA's "Guns don't kill people; people do". Just like guns make killing people easier than with a knife, religion makes hating the foreign unbeliever easier than if you just had to hate them for speaking funny.
"Jesus: The FPS":
...hm, on second thought: no.
While demented soldiers and demons run around the battle arena trying to frag you and each other, your ask as Jesus The Peacemaker is to persuade them to stop fighting.
With a bag full of holy water and bibles, your task is to put and end to the violence.
Powerups include "Quad-prayer" (make them believe in you. If they fail, instill fear into them.) and "Persistent nagging" - If they ignore you, annoy the shit out of them until they listen.
If you played that and anyone knew about it, you'd probably get your ass kicked for being such a pansy, haha.
Not to mention, religious games (with the exception of Black and White) would be utterly boring, just like most religious movies.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I would love to see a game based on the bible. It would be the most violent, debased game in history!
Those of you who've read the bible with any sort of objectivity know what I'm talking about. How many places in the OT does god command the jews to wipe out entire peoples, including women and children? There are even passages where he is angered because the jews decide to spare a few individuals or animals. So in any true bible game, genocide has to play a key role. And of course god doesn't leave all the fun to his chosen people; he certainly gets his hands dirty as well. Some of the more famous instance of god's handiwork include leveling Sodom and Gomorra, killing all the first born in Egypt when the pharaoh refuses to free the jews (interesting note: according to the text, god intentionally "hardened the pharaoh's heart" to Moses' pleas; god forced the pharaoh to refuse so that he could demonstrate his power via the plagues), and wiping out almost every living thing on the planet in a big flood cause he didn't like the way the humans he created were turning out.
Or, how about a Sims-type game? You could try to follow god's laws as they're laid out (mostly in Leviticus, IIRC) without getting stoned to death. Choose to pick up some sticks on the Sabbath? Sorry: you get stoned. Are you a woman who gets raped in the city? Sorry: you get stoned. In a city you should have been able to scream loud enough that someone would have heard. Is your Sim character a child who makes fun of a bald guy? Sorry: god sends some bears out of the woods to maul you. On the plus side, though, you can have slaves and multiple wives, sell your daughters, and have sex with your servants. (Yes, these are all actual biblical laws/stories.)
And the NT isn't much better. You've got the whole crucifixion thing, which is plenty violent (and intentional; not like the omniscient being didn't know it was going to happen). And then there's the problem that Jesus' core message is about as horrible a moral as you can find: "Worship me or you'll be tortured for all eternity, regardless of how good a person you are." And considering god's actions throughout the bible, could any truly moral person worship him in good conscience?
So yeah, I'd like to see a game based on the bible. I want to see the religious right squirm when a game based on the actual stories of their holy book makes Doom 3 look like Big Bird on Ice.
p.s. If you doubt the accuracy of anything I've said, I encourage you wholeheartedly to read the bible yourself. You'll see that the points above are but a tiny sampling of the atrocities the bible has to offer. I just discovered that some enterprising folks have even distilled a lot of the horrors (as well as the ridiculous "science" and many contradictions) of the bible for you: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
What is the justification for taking religion seriously? All religions create a world view that refuses to hold itself up to reason, instead relying on blind faith. For anyone unwilling to suspend disbelief, it *is* nonsense.
Many (most?) individuals are emotionally indoctrinated into religions before they have the power to reason or to make individual choice or, worse, when they are emotionally vulnerable.
But it is reason that separates us from other animals--not emotions.
Ideas must be valued on their explanatory power. Religions have little if any explanatory power. The passion of their defense is inversely proportional to the intrinsic value of their message.
Presuming you're allowing both anime and games, this is just off the top of my head:
Pretty much all anime/game/pop-culture works I've seen that deal with Christian themes have struck me as heavily derivative of the works of Japanese novelist Endo Shuusaku, who wrote very concretely about the Catholic Church's operations in Japanese history and Jesus himself. Some of his works are available in translation and I would suggest checking them out. A lot of other of his literary contemporaries also dwelled on Christian themes at great length, and the effects that the appearance of Christianity had on Japanese thought. Games like Tactics draw very heavily on this literary tradition... so I tend to think of them as using stock plot. Not necessarily a bad plot, but nothing I (or the intended audience) wouldn't expect.
So far, Islamic game software has been rather lame. There's Come to Salah, but it's a "memorize the Qur'an" edutainment product. Something edgier is needed to sell to the Arab street.
What's needed is Diplomacy with the graphic quality of Tropico. You're a dictator trying to play off the religious fanatics against the moderates while dealing with neighboring warlords, US-backed enemies, and ambitious relatives. Try to suppress the imans, and you get a rebellion; give them power over education, and soon few of your people have any useful skills. Start a war to divert attention from your domestic problems, and run the risk of losing. Fail to follow the precepts of the Prophet and the people turn against you.
It must be playable in Internet cafes. That's your market.
The islamic world does have a sense of humor.
That's rich. And you are, of course, able to perceive with complete accuracy truth from lies. Maybe I should start worshipping you...
I don't think there are any games that treat anaesthesiology at anything more than a superficial level, either.
The Medieval iteration of this game used religion fantastically. If your populace was too zealous, and you had an unreligious leader as a governer of their province, they would be less loyal. If you had a really zealous governer, and most people in the province were of another religion, you'd better set up missionaries. The more zeal a province had, the more troops a Jihaad or Crusade would gather during its stay in said province. Glossed over and caricatured? I think not.
There are multiple ways you could look at religion, and they are very different when it comes to video games, or any other medium.
One way is as an institution or culture. This is not difficult, as you are treating the religion as a behavioral entity and can easily reproduce it's symbols and customs in a video game.
Another way is to look at religion as philosophy. This is more difficult, as creating a game that encourages different scenarios based on the beliefs of the player (or at least temporary philosophy for the sake of the game).
One last way to look at religion in regards to video games is the most interesting: The video game as an aspect of the religion itself. If you only believe that religion is defined by authorities writing in books, then you won't think this makes sense. If you believe religion to be a highly personal experience that involves defining your place in the universe, then everything is religious. A video game that changes your world view or wakes you up to a more aware thought process, then it become an aspect of religion itself.
I had a friend who cried at the beauty of one of the game scenarios he experience in Alpha Centauri...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
The reason games don't have real religions modeled in them is just that it would divide their potential userbase. I really think that's all there is to it. Instead of getting people mad, since it is literally impossible to have a portrayal of religion that looks balanced and evenhanded to every potential consumer, they either make the religion realy comic-book-like and fakey, or they shift it off to something else entirely so it doesn't look like anything on earth (like the Hammerites from Thief).
Even the preachy Ultima IV mentioned in the article had to do that sort of thing - making up a new religion that is based on eight virtues, and stays well away from anything like a belief in a god. (It was a good game, although having a computer program enforce rules of morality had problems in that it only cared about the letter of the law, and not the spirit of the law. For example, you could lose an 'eigth' for lack of bravery when your main character doesn't stay behind to be the last person to leave a map in a fight. That was severly flawed when sometimes the congestion of characters on the mapboard made it necessary for you to leave with your main character first just to make the room for the rest to fit out the exit. Sometimes the computer's random placement of figures on the map made it such that your only two choices were 1 - lose the virtue of bravery because the leader is in the way and has to leave first, or 2 - reload the game.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Bah, original sin is just too difficult to bother with nowadays. Everything's been done already. The other day, I threw eggs at a nun's car while riding a unicycle and smoking a joint, and my priest said even that had been done before. QED.
Surely the Gods in nethack are used effectively, very conspicuous and in some cases necessary?
I often pray when stuck in a trap, with a cursed weapon (so no spells), sick, hallucinating and hungry at the same time. Yeah, I was pretty unlucky...
Praise Anhur!