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http://www.nma-fallo...pic.php?t=62758
Citation
I had wanted to develop a religious conflict in an RPG for a while, one that wasn't presented as pro-religion vs. anti-religion. I didn't want to use a proxy/fictitious religion and I didn't want to use religion as the set-up for a series of jokes. My first idea for Honest Hearts was a direct conflict between Joshua and Daniel where Joshua was more like his pre-fall self, but I didn't think the characterization would be particularly interesting and I didn't think players would struggle much with the decision of whom to support. It didn't take long for me to change the main conflict to one about Joshua and Daniel vs. an external threat, with the player's choice revolving around which leader to support. I think we often present players with a choice between two bad solutions and we ask them to decide which one is least bad. With Honest Hearts, I wanted the player to decide which solution would produce the most good.
I wanted the player's first encounter with Joshua to be very reductive. In way, I wanted the player to be initially disappointed. They hear legends of this fearsome, terrible, demonic figure and when they first see him, he's doing the equivalent of putting his pants on one leg at a time: sitting at a table maintaining a stack of guns. Even internally, some people complained about his appearance. They wanted him to be huge and monstrous or they wanted his first encounter with the player to involve him brutally gunning down White Legs. I believed that for his character to feel right in the context of the story, he needed to be a man first and the monster later. But that expressed desire on the team made me ask for the graffiti players see on the way to see Joshua: an entire cliff face dominated by the image of Joshua with tiny White Leg corpses falling down below him. In the image, he's like Goya's Saturn, dwarfing and destroying everyone around him.
Presenting the conflict with Daniel posed some challenges because Daniel is not a living legend, i.e. he is even more of a normal man than Joshua is trying to be. Additionally, Mormonism is not a pacifistic religion (and its soteriology does not depend on pacifism), so the conflict could not reasonably by framed around violence vs. non-violence even in the post-apocalyptic version followed by the New Canaanites. Daniel's concern was about larger issues than fighting or not-fighting; he was concerned that Joshua's lapsed nature would cause a whirlwind of warfare that would pull everyone far away New Canaanite traditions to the point where religion was virtually abandoned in favor of a war cult surrounding Joshua.
I had expected that most people would support Joshua, in part because of Joshua as a character but also because of the nature of gameplay in Fallout (i.e., violence is almost always a solution). I did not expect that the Survivalist's logs (written by John Gonzalez) would push so many more people toward supporting Joshua. I think it's an interesting example of players finding their own connections between the two stories and making an emotional connection that pushes them in a particular direction.
I wanted the player's first encounter with Joshua to be very reductive. In way, I wanted the player to be initially disappointed. They hear legends of this fearsome, terrible, demonic figure and when they first see him, he's doing the equivalent of putting his pants on one leg at a time: sitting at a table maintaining a stack of guns. Even internally, some people complained about his appearance. They wanted him to be huge and monstrous or they wanted his first encounter with the player to involve him brutally gunning down White Legs. I believed that for his character to feel right in the context of the story, he needed to be a man first and the monster later. But that expressed desire on the team made me ask for the graffiti players see on the way to see Joshua: an entire cliff face dominated by the image of Joshua with tiny White Leg corpses falling down below him. In the image, he's like Goya's Saturn, dwarfing and destroying everyone around him.
Presenting the conflict with Daniel posed some challenges because Daniel is not a living legend, i.e. he is even more of a normal man than Joshua is trying to be. Additionally, Mormonism is not a pacifistic religion (and its soteriology does not depend on pacifism), so the conflict could not reasonably by framed around violence vs. non-violence even in the post-apocalyptic version followed by the New Canaanites. Daniel's concern was about larger issues than fighting or not-fighting; he was concerned that Joshua's lapsed nature would cause a whirlwind of warfare that would pull everyone far away New Canaanite traditions to the point where religion was virtually abandoned in favor of a war cult surrounding Joshua.
I had expected that most people would support Joshua, in part because of Joshua as a character but also because of the nature of gameplay in Fallout (i.e., violence is almost always a solution). I did not expect that the Survivalist's logs (written by John Gonzalez) would push so many more people toward supporting Joshua. I think it's an interesting example of players finding their own connections between the two stories and making an emotional connection that pushes them in a particular direction.
Pour ceux qui ne lisent pas l'anglais, Sawyer a toujours cherché à produire une histoire sur un conflit religieux, pas dans une optique "pour ou contre la religion" mais plus à cause de légères différences théologiques. Daniel et Graham ont strictement la même conception de la religion (le mormonisme n'est pas pacifiste par définition) mais n'ont pas la même façon de régler les problèmes et Sawyer voulait confronter le joueur à deux "bonnes" façons de régler le problème.
Au niveau du personnage de Graham, Sawyer voulait faire rencontrer un homme tout simple et non la légende "The Burning Man walks!", histoire que les joueurs soient au début déçus par le personnage et qu'au fur et à mesure des quêtes on découvre le monstre de la légende. Il dit aussi que l'équipe voulait aussi qu'il soit présenté comme cette légende mais au vu du résultat final, il semblerait que Sawyer a réussi à garder son idée.
Il aborde ensuite le personnage de Daniel qui est problématique parce qu'il n'est, dans la légende, personne et pourtant, il s'oppose à Graham, qui quant à lui, est tout. La solution de Daniel ne doit pas être non plus du simple pacifisme classique, les mormons n'étant pas pacifistes. En fait, Daniel a peur de la personnalité de Graham qui pourrait entraîner tous les peuples dans une spirale meurtrière, et où la religion ne pèserait pas lourd face au culte guerrier autour de Graham.
A la fin, Sawyer s'attendait à ce que la plupart des joueurs rejoignent les vues de Graham, à cause du personnage déjà et ensuite à cause du gameplay violent inhérent à la série Fallout. Ce qu'il ne s'attendait pas, c'est que le journal du survivaliste (le gars qui a filé des provisions aux premiers réfugiés de Zion puis qui est devenu une figure divine paternelle pour les tribus autochtones - le journal a été écrit par quelqu'un d'autre que Sawyer), ce journal pousse encore plus de gens du côté de Graham.
)). Quant à Ulysse, il ne m'a pas tant que ça choqué. Pour je ne sais quel raison, je n'attendais pas mieux de lui. J'avais pas forcément vu à quel point il était paumé avant de lire tes explications Aubustou cela dit, donc merci pour ça. 
