No Religion In Wesnoth - Expanded (Draft policy)

[Simons Mith]

'No Religion in Wesnoth' is a bit of a blanket statement. This draft policy attempts to be a bit more specific about what's OK and what's not, and why. And contains a possible alternative to religions ('Passions') that might be workable. I would be grateful for comments. Please feel free to use private messages if you prefer. I really wasn't at all sure which forum was best for this, so I stuck it here. Once agreed, I think this can be wikified, but it's an important and sensitive area, and needs discussion first. I hope people think this is useful.




Religion in Wesnoth - Draft policy


The basic position on religion in Battle for Wesnoth is 'NRIW' - No Religion
in Wesnoth. It's sufficiently important that it even has its own acronym.
However, the Wesnoth setting has people in it, and people have religions.
It's simply preposterous to assume that the people of Wesnoth have no religions at
all, especially in a Dark Age fantasy setting, and from this we can infer
that 'No Religion in Wesnoth' means 'No Religion to be portrayed in the
Wesnoth game'.

Unfortunately, that is still a bit of a blanket statement, and several
campaigns have broken that guideline in various small ways.

This policy attempts to be more specific about what you are and are not
allowed to do, and how the Wesnoth developers will handle things when the
guidelines are broken.


Things to avoid

Names of gods

You may not refer to any Wesnoth deity by name. This is easy; no
main-timeline Wesnoth deity has been given a name, and there are no plans to
name them, decide how many there are, or even to define what they are gods
of.

Example (by exception): The Under the Burning Suns campaign refers to a
benevolent-sounding Elven goddess called Eloh. She is referred to in phrases
such as "All things of this world come to an end, but the power of Eloh
endures." We would now consider such a strong expression of religious faith
to be unacceptable. The Under the Burning Suns campaign only gets away with
it because it was written long before the no-religion policy was formalised,
and also because it is not set in the main Wesnoth timeline. Without both of
those conditions it would not be permitted to to continue in its current
state, and no other campaign that refers to any god in as specific a way as
this will ever be permitted to become a mainline campaign.


Religious or holy symbols.

Do not create any unit, terrain or in-game object that includes a religious
symbol. That doesn't just mean real-world holy symbols, it includes invented
Wesnoth holy symbols too. A priest carrying a cross as his holy sign, a
church- or mosque-like building, or a hill-carving of a holy symbol would
all count as unacceptable. Magic symbols are fine; heraldic symbols
are OK, and secular or business-related symbols are acceptable too. (Two
real-world examples of 'business' symbols are the three balls used to
symbolise a pawnbroker, or the red-and-white striped pole used to denote a
barber's shop. Wesnoth equivalents of either of those would be fine.)

Example (by exception): For historical reasons, the white mage and paladin
units carried vaguely-Christian overtones. The white mage used a 'holy'
magic attack for example, now renamed 'arcane', and in association with the
mage's 'holy' magic attack, one might resonably assume that the mage's staff
carried a holy symbol. The official line we would now take is that the staff
is just a magic staff, and the ankh-like symbol on it is simply a magic
sigil with no religious connotations.

One side-effect of this rule is that you would not be permitted to create
any 'priest' or 'holy man' type units. Any special powers a unit has in-game
(including things like 'bless', 'heal' or 'exorcise') must be written up as
being powered from a magical source rather than from a religious or divine
source.


Shrines, temples and other religious buildings

While it might be tempting to have a scenario where the hero raids the
orcish temple, that's forbidden too, because it requires you to define the
layout of the temple, populate it with believers, and presumably desecrate
or destroy the temple or kill the high priest in order to win the scenario.
The fact that it's a fictional orcish religion being portrayed is beside the
point. The same objection would apply to things like staging a battle in an
elven sacred grove. Yes, you can have a fight in a beautiful, peaceful elven
glade, but not in a holy elven glade. Similarly, no summoning
skeletons from within a graveyard; that too would violate a holy site.

Partial exception: There is a temple/shrine graphic, which has occasinally
been used as a move-to location to pick up white mage characters in some
scenarios, or magic items. This is sailing as close to the wind as we intend
to permit.

[Author's note: Yes, we have a graphic image for a greek or roman-style
temple. But we should really have is elven temples, dwarven temples,
drake-style temples and so on, and that would break this rule on religious
buildings. This strongly suggests to me that the existing temple image is
inappropriate too, and should be replaced. Not sure what with though. Perhaps
we need a few buildings with magical rather than religious
connotations, and these can then safely be customised to suit the different
races and factions.]


What is permitted?

You may wish to show that one character is more or less pious than another
as part of their character development. You may use bland phrases such as
'Bless you' or 'May the gods look over you' to do this, but not by invoking
the name of any specific god. You may refer to gods, plural, in the
abstract. You may refer to 'Lords (or Gods) of Light, Darkness, War' or some
other equally broad area. Work on the assumption that there are maybe 2-3
dozen (unnamed) Wesnoth deities organised into various pantheons. Phrase
things sufficiently broadly that you can picture the dialogue spoken by any
Wesnoth race. A human might refer to the 'gods of war', and so too might an
elf, orc or dwarf, so that's probably OK. They might be referring to a
slightly different group of gods in each case, but the phrasing still works.
Maybe there are even overlaps, such that some gods are included under both
the orcish gods of war and the human gods of war. Conversely, something more
specific, like 'gods of justice' for example, doesn't work because 'justice'
is too specialied an area to have multiple gods associated with it, unless
Wesnoth had hundreds of gods.

[Author's note: The Earthdawn RPG cleverly sidesteps this problem by using
entities called Passions. These creatures are not gods, but they serve the
same spiritual needs; maybe Wesnoth should do something similar. Then we
could rule that there really are no gods in Wesnoth, and provided we defined
the Wesnoth passions instead, we would be able to kill off this potentially
contentious issue once and for all.]


When the rules are broken

Various pre-existing campaigns tread close to the lines drawn above. There
are temples, references to a deity, mages who behave rather like
magic-powered priests and perhaps a few other transgressions. The policy is,
any new campaign has to follow these rules faithfully or it will not be
included in mainline. A good campaign that breaks the guidelines will be
rewritten if needed to bring it in line before it is accepted.

On the campaign server, minor transgressions are permitted. Gratuitous major
transgressions; for example, blatantly using Wesnoth to model real-world
religions, will be removed from the add-on server. However, if somebody made
a serious attempt to use Wesnoth to model a historical real-world war (the
Thirty Years' War, perhaps), then the campaign would be judged on its
accuracy. We don't want to censor anything, so something done to be
historically accurate will be acceptable, but anything done to be
provocative will not be.

[Turuk]

While I understand that you actually took the time to fashion a draft for what could allow for religion in the game, you are not really providing an outline what is ok and what is not in an effort to explain No Religion In Wesnoth. NRIW is a statement that has been said before by Dave and reinforced again recently here. You, rather, are explaining what should be accepted as exceptions to the rule, which then would not make it a rule at all.

While in the past, people have seen fit to merely quote the defining comment on Dave that outlines his policy, reading the rest of the thread gives a bit more emphasis on that statement. This is the comment that is often missed, and is what preceded and prompted Dave's statement.

I don't see why people would be offended. There are plenty of made up gods in real life, after all. At least in those games they admit they're fake.

It can be offensive that religion is something it is OK to joke about, to make up your own religion.
It can be offensive that religion is not taken seriously and a made up god is just as 'real' as your god.

Get it?

I feel this adds a bit more comprehension as to the why behind the rule, on top of Dave's own feelings on the issue.


In regards to your comment about UtBS, I think that Sapient has put it best.

UtBS broke the rule; NRIW is the rule.

(Just because UtBS broke the rule does not mean that the rule will cease to exist for all other campaigns, though.)

Because Wesnoth borrows ideas from mythology, lores, and stories which were once closely related to religions, you may find hints of religion in Wesnoth. Think of them as artifacts of the unit concepts rather than intentional parts of the unit concepts.

I think that if you were to provide an explanation of why NRIW is the way it is, that is fine, but providing people with ways they could try to toe the line might end up hurting them in the long run.

On the campaign server, minor transgressions are permitted. Gratuitous major
transgressions; for example, blatantly using Wesnoth to model real-world
religions, will be removed from the add-on server.

Not entirely accurate. If it was offensive and degrading, yes, but there is nothing that stops anyone from making their own modification.

[Ken_Oh]

I think a wiki-ed explanation of NRIW might be in order, but I don't think it needs to be book-length. The line is hardly a fine one. Telling people to avoid religion for anything they think may be mainline-worthy, with some quotes of previous dev discussion, should be good enough.

[Simons Mith]

While I understand that you actually took the time to fashion a draft for what could allow for religion in the game, you are not really providing an outline what is ok and what is not in an effort to explain No Religion In Wesnoth. NRIW is a statement that has been said before by Dave and reinforced again recently here. You, rather, are explaining what should be accepted as exceptions to the rule, which then would not make it a rule at all.

I'd hope what I wrote is clear enough, and about the right length.



The trouble I see is that in spite of the 'No Religion in Wesnoth' decree,
there is a constant trickle of little things which actually are
religion-based, but which are minor enough to sneak past unnoticed. But they
add up, and they muddy the waters for future contributors. After
all, 'druids', 'shamans' and 'soothsayers' are real-world religious roles.
That's the trouble. Religion is so insidious. It slips into our vocabulary;
'goodbye' and 'gadzooks' are both words coming from a religious base. Trying
to rigidly enforce 'No Religion Whatsoever in Wesnoth' cannot work. So we
should try to be a bit more specific about how religious a campaign author
can get i.e. not very; some generic phrases permitted, but anything specific
banned outright - or else take the Earthdawn route and shut down the entire
issue permanently.

For myself, and keeping in mind the sort of campaign dialogue I'd like to
write, I think things like 'May the Lords of Light look over us,' or 'The
gods of war will smile on this day' should be acceptable, but that 'Eloh
will preserve us' shouldn't be. If the first two aren't permissible either,
oo-kay, but then there's some more pre-existing campaign dialogue that ought
to be rewritten. But I don't think banning generic exclamations with a
religious root (for example, 'Gods preserve us!') is acceptable because it
goes too far.

If even generic references to gods are going to be banned as well, fine, but
at that point it starts to interfere with writing good dialog for a
noticeable number of characters. The next step would be to ban pious
characters outright, and that's certainly going to start impoverishing the
game.

I don't have a problem with graphics and terrain design, personally, but I
do have concerns when it comes to writing campaign dialogue, because
as a writer that what I'd be doing if I ever submitted anything to the game.
Hence why I drew the line where I did. But forbidding characters from making
even generic religious references in their speech is almost as bad as
banning elves from using the word 'tree'. Because many once-religious
sayings are now used just as exclamations, and most people no longer mean
them religiously. Think of 'Damnation!' for example - or 'Godzooks!'.
Going so far as to ban even the generic phrases interferes with such usages,
and speaking as a writer I don't think that's right. The reason I wrote
these guidelines is to try to be just a bit more specific than 'NRIW' about
what's OK and what's not.

[Turuk]

After all, 'druids', 'shamans' and 'soothsayers' are real-world religious roles.

You are confusing religious and spiritual roles here, as those three occupations do not focus on deity worship at all.

Trying to rigidly enforce 'No Religion Whatsoever in Wesnoth' cannot work. So we
should try to be a bit more specific about how religious a campaign author
can get i.e. not very; some generic phrases permitted, but anything specific
banned outright - or else take the Earthdawn route and shut down the entire
issue permanently.

For myself, and keeping in mind the sort of campaign dialogue I'd like to
write, I think things like 'May the Lords of Light look over us,' or 'The
gods of war will smile on this day' should be acceptable, but that 'Eloh
will preserve us' shouldn't be. If the first two aren't permissible either,
oo-kay, but then there's some more pre-existing campaign dialogue that ought
to be rewritten. But I don't think banning generic exclamations with a
religious root (for example, 'Gods preserve us!') is acceptable because it
goes too far.

Here's the thing though. You have acknowledged that there are some phrases that will potentially dance on either side of the line, and so may or may not be acceptable. True enough, but while you can write a guide which tells people a rough approximation of what may get into the game or what may be acceptable in dialogue, it will still come down to a case-by-case basis. So if that's the result, it sort of negates the whole point.

NRIW is not perfect, but it is adopted because it stamps out any problems/issues that could arise by allowing for exceptions. Trying to explain what may be okay opens the door for people to dance around that line in arguing why their campaign is just non-religious enough for inclusion. NRIW may seem to be overbearing, but it serves a purpose, and it has never really been an issue. Most people acknowledge the policy and just leave religion out of the picture.

[JW]

I don't even know what the point is here. The only reason people would worry about religion in Wesnoth is for mainline. UMC can do whatever they want as long as it's not disrespectful AFAIK. NRIW is meant for the main game: not to completely restrict people's freedom of expression.

That being said, if you use religion in your add-ons it probably won't be going mainline, but then again the odds of that aren't really high to begin with.

Of course, this is just how I interpret the saying. I might be 100% wrong.

[Thanatos]

Actually, I think for practical reasons JW said it best and Turuk hinted to some important points.
I won't repeat those two here, just showing my support for their sayings.

However, I actually seem to have problems with grasping the theoretical concept of "religion" in this (the Wesnothian) context. For example, I would disagree with Turuk, that there is some major difference between "spiritual" and "religious" characters. In fact, I am not so sure about the difference of "magic" and "religion" too. All of these terms refer to a metaphysical explanation of beings or techniques. But while we wouldn't allow such concepts in our real life, we surely don't want to ban all metaphysical stuff from a fantasy setting. So I really would appreciate some explanation about what is okay and what not - and WHY!

To give an example from my major field of interest: Death and especially the concepts of the beyond or the afterlife, the concept of something like a soul and so on, are all metaphysical problems - which play an important role in Wesnoth. Only think about the Undead: They are revived beings, risen from their graves. But note: Those concepts are also the main center of all religions (some would even say they are the center of the whole culture thing at all). So, where is the border here to state: "this is pure magic, and this is religious stuff" ?

On another - even more controversial - note: While I actually support not to implement real life religions (Christianity, Islamic believes, etc.) into the game, I am not so sure about leaving the concept of religion out of the game at all. For be handled like this, religion is too strong a concept, especially in fantasy settings. Where I actually can see marvelous things happen through magic, I would surely be more willing to believe in some metaphysical claims about invisible and omnipotent entities such as gods. Also, there is much more religious framework to the world than we normally think of. What about cemeteries for example? They are the representation of some special attitude towards Death and handling it in asome cultural manner: the ritual of a burial. In cultures, with other attitudes towards these topics, the ritual at the end of life (if there would be one at all), would look much different (cremation, mumification, cannibalism). Not to mention the numerous hints in the used languages. Actually I think the cultures in Wesnoth with always stay somehow flat, if no one adresses their believes and view of the world more. Especially the metaphysical view.

This said, I know that there will be no Religion in Wesnoth and I really don't want to change this statement in the first place. What I want is to point out some weak points in the argumentation for the claim. While I can accept the statement as such, I cannot accept any "false" argumentation for it. Just say: "We won't do it." and it's fine.

Have to go now... will take a closer look again later.

[Darker_Dreams]

You are confusing religious and spiritual roles here, as those three occupations do not focus on deity worship at all.

Apropos only of pointing out how sticky this subject is; I know a number of people who would take offense at this statement, as it minimizes their religion(s)- essentially saying their holy men/women are less than those who use the term "priest" to refer to themselves. It's much like saying, the term Rabbi "only" means teacher... are you really willing to tell members of the jewish faith that someone they call "teacher" doesn't have a religious roll, or that it's "only" spiritual? Are you really willing to give more consideration, because of a title, to a Voodoo priest than a native-culture's shaman- or tell someone a practitioner of that native culture their beliefs don't qualify as a religion?

Don't get me wrong, all I'm saying is that bright lines are harder to come by when you get into "religion" than statements like this allow for.

[Lord Ork]

After all, 'druids', 'shamans' and 'soothsayers' are real-world religious roles.

You are confusing religious and spiritual roles here, as those three occupations do not focus on deity worship at all.

Soothsayer is debatable, but druids and shamans are religious roles. They act as intermediaries of the spirits around us, and this is religion. In fact, it is the kind of religion that IMO goes better with elves.

I have tried (and read) and I don't find the problem with pagan-like religions in Wesnoth. All civilizations started with one kind of paganism. This is a fact that I think no religious or atheist discuss. So, I see no problem with some displays of religion in Wesnoth as long as:

1) They do not resemble real world religion, save for animistic (which are very similar between them).
2) No fact is given in favour of any religion (god's manifestations, official mythology, ...). It's only believed by their followers.

I would prefer the rule to be NRGIW (No Real Gods In Wesnoth), that is no religions from the real world, and no gods considered "real" in the setting. I think that no one can be offended by this approach.

[Turuk]

I would prefer the rule to be NRGIW (No Real Gods In Wesnoth), that is no religions from the real world, and no gods considered "real" in the setting. I think that no one can be offended by this approach.

See below.

I don't see why people would be offended. There are plenty of made up gods in real life, after all. At least in those games they admit they're fake.

It can be offensive that religion is something it is OK to joke about, to make up your own religion.
It can be offensive that religion is not taken seriously and a made up god is just as 'real' as your god.

Get it?

Apropos only of pointing out how sticky this subject is; I know a number of people who would take offense at this statement, as it minimizes their religion(s)- essentially saying their holy men/women are less than those who use the term "priest" to refer to themselves.

I also did not expect people to split hairs over that statement, as I was referring to the fact that they are traditionally viewed as spiritual roles over their religious ones, and that those three words chosen, especially shaman and soothsayer, are not readily associated in anyone's mind with a certain religion. My main point with that is the fact that in Wesnoth, the units with the titles Shaman, Soothsayer and Druid have no religious or spiritual purpose in the game.

You are indeed right that such a clear statement may be open to argument but various people, and so Darker_Dreams inadvertently makes a great point for me. NRIW is (as mentioned above) the policy adopted to avoid issues like this. Any inclusion of religion in the game, no matter how well it was handled, could potentially be taken either way. Darker_Dreams replied in a polite manner just to point out where people would argue, and I can respond accordingly. I ask you this. How many religion threads have you seen on here that come to barely restrained flame wars?

As for Thanatos:

This said, I know that there will be no Religion in Wesnoth and I really don't want to change this statement in the first place. What I want is to point out some weak points in the argumentation for the claim. While I can accept the statement as such, I cannot accept any "false" argumentation for it. Just say: "We won't do it." and it's fine.

There has never been any real false argumentation for it. It's been strictly NRIW (which translates to we won't do it). From time to time people wish to argue about whether or not it should be in the game, but the policy has never changed. As to everything else, if you cannot find a defining difference between spiritual, magical and religious, that is on you.

I don't even know what the point is here. The only reason people would worry about religion in Wesnoth is for mainline. UMC can do whatever they want as long as it's not disrespectful AFAIK. NRIW is meant for the main game: not to completely restrict people's freedom of expression.

That being said, if you use religion in your add-ons it probably won't be going mainline, but then again the odds of that aren't really high to begin with.

Of course, this is just how I interpret the saying. I might be 100% wrong.

No, JW is right, and it is a statement I made in my first reply in this thread but seems to have been overlooked because it was a response to something Simons Mith wrote in his OP. NRIW is for mainline, and UMCs are free to do as they please as long as it's not overly offensive, degrading or disrespectful.


This brings me back to another of my original points. NRIW is the policy, and it is not going to change. If anyone wants to put religion in a UMC, there is nothing stopping them, but debating the inclusion of religion of mainline or trying to define ways around the policy will not meet with any success. As I said before, Simons Mith, you are free to make a wiki page that outlines NRIW beyond just the acronym to help out new players or those who do not know.

I think a wiki-ed explanation of NRIW might be in order, but I don't think it needs to be book-length. The line is hardly a fine one. Telling people to avoid religion for anything they think may be mainline-worthy, with some quotes of previous dev discussion, should be good enough.

NRIW being the policy and not open for debate, this topic functions as nothing but a target for potential controversy. Continue the posts if they are related to working on an explanation of what NRIW, but otherwise I will lock this for it's own good.

[Lord Ork]

I don't see why people would be offended. There are plenty of made up gods in real life, after all. At least in those games they admit they're fake.

It can be offensive that religion is something it is OK to joke about, to make up your own religion.
It can be offensive that religion is not taken seriously and a made up god is just as 'real' as your god.

Get it?

Yeah. I read it a lot of times. But I'm not speaking about joking about religion, nor making the game's gods as real as anyone's god. I'm saying that all civilization had their own metaphysical explanations. If someone is a believer, he must accept that there is a lot of fake religions, cults or deities, so, I don't see the offence in making in a fiction more fake religions. It's only History.

Anyway, Tolkien did use religion in his works, and it seems to offend no one. He was a very religious person, himself.


Edit in response to below: Ok, this is out of discussion. I only wanted to point out that shamanism is other religion (at other scale), and that maybe it could be the type of religion that couldn't offend anyone. Anyway, I can't agree with it, but I accept NRIW as a princip

[Turuk]

Yeah. I read it a lot of times. But I'm not speaking about joking about religion, nor making the game's gods as real as anyone's god. I'm saying that all civilization had their own metaphysical explanations. If someone is a believer, he must accept that there is a lot of fake religions, cults or deities, so, I don't see the offence in making in a fiction more fake religions. It's only History.

Anyway, Tolkien did use religion in his works, and it seems to offend no one. He was a very religious person, himself.

I understand that Flamma, but that is a different medium, and this is not an issue of, "Well, he/she was very religious and they included it in what they did." I see where you are going, but it boils down to what I just stated.

No more debate on justification about why it could be included, see my last lines in my previous posts.

[turin]

(Just to clarify; I don't really agree with that statement of mine everyone keeps quoting. I wrote it many years ago, and would write something very different today. Something rather like the following. )

Anyway, Tolkien did use religion in his works, and it seems to offend no one. He was a very religious person, himself.

Yes, Tolkien used religion in his works, and in his works there was a religion that was true, and he could do that because he was coming at it from specific theological and philosophical positions and the books he wrote were in some sense arguments for those positions.

But Wesnoth isn't a book written by one person; it's a collaboration between many different people coming from different religious and philosophical backgrounds. Trying to include religion in this without causing conflict sounds almost impossible to me. Not many people take offense to Tolkien's including religion in his work the way he did, but if he had written LotR in collaboration with an atheist, a Muslim, a Jew, a Buddhist, and an animist, I don't think any of them would have been OK with him including religion the way he did. And that's basically the situation we're in - campaigns are written by individual people, normally, but they all have to fit together somehow in the core canon of Wesnoth (including the nature of the different cultures and religions if we didn't have NRIW).

I'd say this inability to agree on how to represent religion, not the likelihood of offending anyone by the very presence of religion, is the reason we want NRIW...

[Thanatos]

Removed.

However, if the project of Simons Mith goes on and is meant serious, there are only two ways to approach it, I think:

a) The easy statement:

"There is a simple rule in Wesnoth: No religion allowed. Often abbreviated as NRIW (No religion in Wesnoth). However, if you are not sure if your idea falls under the NRIW regime, please ask kindly in the forums."

b) The explanation statement:

See the opening post with trying to define once and for all what would be considered compatible with mainline and what not.

I am absolutely fine with a). But if b) would be applicated, then the danger is great that there will spawn a lot of new debates about it in the future again. You could argue that a) will also cause forum traffic. That's true, but I think the questions would be different. With a) I would expect something like "Is creating a temple/ a priest unit/... okay?", what could easily be answered "Yes" or "No" by the people in charge, without having to repeat the basic discussion over and over. With b) I think this would be much more complicated provoking more general debates about the religious dogma in this very community.


Oh, and just for the protocol: There are actually people living that are offended for anything. Taking offenses is a choice which to make should be an ability in tolerant communities. I think it's a sign that Wesnoth chose the NRIW dogma in the first place.

[Turuk]

As I said before, I am not trying to get religion into the game - especially not mainline, so...
Just one post for meta-communication and I am out of this thread then:

No. Not one post, not one line hidden in a post that is on topic. No meta-communication, keep to the task at hand. I left the practical parts of your post and deleted the rest.