I just stumbled over a small note in my notebook on spirituality in games. This thought has been inspired by a visit of a church in London¹, while they were having mass.

Since I’m note exactly an avid churchgoer, watching the people was quite interesting – most of all the fact that people whenever they would get into the “line of sight” of the cross would turn towards it and shortly bow.

The way they did it suggested that this was a very automatic gesture of reference, mostly done without even much thinking about it – but it got me thinking.

In most games set in a fantasy world, you will have a complete pantheon of all kinds of gods, but they seldom matter for the actual gameplay. At best, they serve as a way to get free health points, as in Baldur’s Gate and later Neverwinter Nights or different power-ups as in Diablo. That mechanic does not enforce appropriate behaviour though which in my opinion would be essential to give the player a feeling of religion.

The idea for shrines to give power-ups is good, as there should be an incentive for players to get involved with spirituality, but just clicking on a shrine is not enough. But if you bow before the shrine, it could be more like it. If you even kneel down to pray, you could be showered with a god’s blessings.

Of course, this could be extended in several ways. Depending on the deities’ main aspects, it will give fitting power-ups. Diablo does that, but it fails to associate the different shrines with appropriate gods or goddesses. Instead you have “Shrines of Strength”, “Shrines of Skill” and so on, which hardly makes sense in any universe. Have you ever seen a shrine dedicated to an abstract concept? I have yet to be proved wrong, but I am fairly convinced that in any case shrines are devoted to persons or animals that will stand for that certain concept, but never to that concept alone. It could not have been so difficult to change those names into something more fitting the setting – what about the “Shrine of the Lion” or the “Shrine of the Raven”?

Also, depending on your character’s alignment, profession or general “lifestyle”, you may be favoured by some gods and lesser by others. Some might even decide to punish you, because you might have done something to disrespect them. Take a thief, for example: on Aventuria, he will have all the blessings of Phex, but going into a temple of Praios might not be such a clever idea …

Just as the Alignment System of D&D, the inclusion of “conflicting deities” might be a way to enforce a certain behaviour and therefore achieve a differentiation of play styles in a game. And it may give the player a deeper understanding of the innermost workings of the world she or he is currently playing in.