That's rather shocking . . .

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/history/creed.filioque.txt

It's times like these that I wish I had a copy of Credo to bring to a con and play with all y'all.

Actually, I've always wondered who their target market was for that game, apart from me -- and goodness knows, people do not normally bring out products aimed exclusively at the J-O segment of the population.

I haven't seen the Gibson film, but what I heard about it made it sound deeply Manichean.

However, I'm nopt surprised that it's provoked homousion disputes.

I thought of another all-new heresy myself the other day, but I'll save it for the next time I want to put one into a fantasy novel.

Actually, I can summarize what the rules leave out.

The game proceeds with people picking up cards in turn, and every so often this is punctuated with a church council when everyone goes mad and starts yelling and playing cards at each other and persecuting and making deals. It's a bit like Illuminati. No, strike that, it isn't.

We play it every Christmas, and I could bring it to a con if people wanted to play.

(Only US con currently planned for this year: Minicon.)

======================
I have discovered a truly remarkable heresy which this margin is too small to contain.

The Smoking Gun as pictures and such. I's trying to figure out what they remind me of . . .

I haven't played it myself (I did own a copy at one time, but sold it), but general consensus seems to be that the theme is most of the game. It gets fairly mediocre ratings on BoardgameGeek (and even some of the higher ratings are really for the theme, if you read the comments). Mike Siggins (game reviewer extraordinaire) had this to say in his Sumo's Karaoke Club review:

I would summarise Credo as a classic experience game. It is fun to read the amazing (yet apparently entirely accurate) cards, exile the Bishop of Nicopolis to Upper Egypt and to mutilate the odd prelate. It isn't much fun to see an all-but-game winning flock numbered in the millions disappear and be able to do nothing to stop it. Oddly, this frustration seems to apply even if you don't much mind about winning, simply because a small flock and voting capacity reduce your involvement and enjoyment of the game. You often just sit there and say, 'Fine by me', because there is nothing you can influence anyway. Whatever, the interaction is there because you do of course try to do the same to some other sucker by proselytizing him and it always helps to be the Emperor (on an 'It's good to be the King' basis). The end result is that you go with the flow, griping as required by events, and savour the game as a sort of Bible Belt theme park ride.

And of course it's not easy to find a copy nowadays, as Chaosium's print run was small. The French edition is easier to find (well, if you're in France, anyway) and has much better components, but does have rather a lot of French text in it that you'd need to be able to read.

For what it's worth, that reminds me perfectly of why I miss RASFF so much. Maybe after November I'll be able to get back to it.

Jim, you owe my employer a new keyboard....

---L.

Yup. Or rather, I don't actually remember that (before I was born), but I've seen them.

There are a fair number of religious games out these days. Cactus Game Design has done a number of them, including a Biblical collectible card game, the boardgame Redemption: City of Bondage (not nearly as interesting as it sounds, I'm afraid), and Settlers of Canaan, which is a (licensed) Biblical version of the very popular Settlers of Catan.

And then there's the Mormon game company, Inspiration Games. It's the religious label of Uberplay Games, which does "German-style" and German board and card games. Inspiration has so far released Settlers of Zarahemla (Settlers of Catan again, this time using a Mormon background) and Ark of the Covenant (a Biblical version of the game Carcassonne).

Ah - so it's exactly like religion, then?

C.

Jim, I also recall (having a long history with AH) when they released the "Witchcraft" and "Black Magic" DIY kits. (You could even buy replacement chalk and candles from the parts catalog.) I guess they wanted to hedge their bets.

And suddenly I kinda sorta vaguely wanna design a second-stage version of Credo ("Credo: New Celestial Order?" "Grand Design III: Cities of Vice and Virtue?" "Celebrity Pro Wrestling with Angels?") but I should probably find something else to do.

Scissorthorn Scissorthorns
Melissa Davidson
Saw Mel Gibson's movie
Started a fight

With her husband over
Godfathertrinity
And ended up in jail
To Christs Delight?

Fights soon ensue over
Microtheology,
Missing the point of what
He sacrificed.

Next pre- or post-con y'all have time to spend up here at chez Hanger-Phillips, the Credo is on me (local friend from same student days has a copy, but I wouldn't ask him to lend it without him being present -- wouldn't be fair; besides, as has been said, it's hard to find now). I think with some suitable libations, we could come up with some pretty good pseudotheology.

"O life is a toil,
And love is a trouble,
Beauty will fade
And riches will flee,
Wages will dwindle
And prices will double
And nothing is as I
Would wish it to be."

As for the Credo game -- goodness, that sounds like a panel to me...! Jo, Teresa, and Mike? You'd pack the room.

The basic gameplay is centered around negotiating the Nicean Creed. Player introduce various articles and then vote, backstab, and connive to get them integrated into the final draft. What makes it brilliant is that the game contains ALL of the possible interpretations of the faith that existed at that time - you can get a dualistic creed ("I believe in two gods..."), a gnostic creed, arian, monophysique, or even a pagan creed ("I believe in one God, Jesus Christ, CHOSEN AVATAR OF THE UNCONQUERED SUN"). Most likely you'll end up with an incoherent collection of contradictory articles making up the final creed - like others have said, it's historically accurate!

All of this takes place against a backdrop of historical events and manuevering. Declare heresies, browbeat other bishops into joining your faction, discover the true cross, lobby to incorporate apocryphal works into the New Testament (think how much cooler the Bible would be if it had The Miracles Of The Infant Jesus or The Secret Testimony of Mary Magdalene) - it's all there. There are some pretty sly jokes in the card mix, too - many of the different Creed articles are phrased nearly identically, and I think the true cross can be discovered more than once.

The game really shines in its concept - the notion that the bedrock principles of modern christianity were derived by no-holds-barred political manuevering and blind chance, best represented by Illuminati or Junta style gameplay can be a real shock to the system of someone who isn't familiar with how contentious the early church was. The historical accuracy makes the game's point hard to dismiss. Plus, the notion of rewriting the Nicene Creed as an explicitly pagan (or zoroastrian, or neo-platonic) document is just too much fun, despite the so-so gameplay.

I always took that to mean that Jesus was aware of the presence of functional immortals in the world, and recognized a few of them in the crowd. Possibly vampires.

Heck, what if he just saw the wandering Jew?

Credo sounds like a wonderful game, as though someone had anticipated the eventual existence of rasff; and it makes me even sorrier that I'm not going to Minicon this year. We could have a memorable amount of fun.

Everyone knows this is the actual period and process that gave rise to the very first flame wars, right?

Jo, if I'd run across this game when it first came out, I too would have wondered what their target market was, aside from me. But why not? Isn't our culture full of things which, as far as you and I are concerned, might as well have resident interstellar aliens as their target market?

I suspect the real impetus behind that game was the same one that currently drives the production of arcane "What kind of ________ are you?" tests: someone knows enough about the subject to devise it, and is sufficiently enthusiastic about it to want to do so.

Nancy, you're on, whenever that it may.

On the subject of the movie, I saw it, liked it, and was able to describe a part of it to a curious friend as "Satan? Yes, imagine an Evil Xaan from Farscape, only not blue . . ."

Here in small town Worcester, everyone is talking about it. I couldn't get past government building security guards the other day without one of them noticing that my wallet (had to empty my pockets) had a small picture of Jesus laughing on it. ("Who's that?" "Jesus." "Laughing?" "He wasn't crucified the whole time, you know." "Oh, right. Did you see the movie?")

So would a "Left Behind" film in any way be considered the sequal?

As for Credo, it was published by a small game company (The Chaosium) in small numbers, so they didn't really need much of a target market (they also did a really cheap production job, so it couldn't have cost them much). There are enough gaming geeks around who would find the idea to be cool to support that. Heck, I bought a copy.

Anyone inspired by this thread to get the game will unfortunately have a difficult time of it (unless, as noted, they can read French). There is one guy on BoardgameGeek who has a copy for trade, which I'd have to say is the best bet at the moment.

Jason: I don't know enough about the composition of Da Vinci's Last Supper to know who John and Simon are. I'll just list all the characters in that image, left to right: The Martian Manhunter, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Lex Luthor, Lightray (one of Jack Kirby's "New Gods"), Superman, Batman, Bizarro, Flash, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and I'm not sure about the last but am guessing Speedy (who hasn't appeared in Justice League but has in Teen Titans).

I leave it to those more knowledgeable than me to explain the various correspondences between Apostles and super-characters. I wonder in particular about Catwoman and Bizarro.

I just noticed the Kryptonite knife in Lex's hand (I assume he's in the role of Judas Iscariot); rather cool.

This would put Speedy (possible the new Green arrow, now that I think about it) in the role of Simon, Batman in the role of Thomas (appropriate, to certain readings of Batman), Lightray in the role of John, Luthor in the role of Peter (very interesting) and Aquaman, oddly enough, in the role of Judas.

My guess, really, is that the artist just wanted to do the picture and put Superman in as Christ. The rest he probably just wanted to match poses with and didn't give a lot of thought to the iconography.

Well, back to listening to Jesus Christ Superstar for me...

I read this aloud to Lee (my bf) and he giggled, of course. He keeps making references to the Passionfruit of Christ, which make me wish I was better at Flash, since there are so many places I could go with that.

It's a bad adaptation of Quake: you get to pick whether you're an angel defending Heaven or a demon bent on conquering it and play as that character.

I've never played the game through to the ending. The novelty of playing a demon wears off after a while (it's obvious that there's a real Deus ex Machina ending) or a headache (Hell's color scheme is red and neon green). The angels are too wimpy to use effectively--a sling with a rock is their default weapon. (Heaven's decor, also, leaves something to be desired. I didn't expect knockoff Italianate fountains or reliefs of Babylonian oxen on the walls).

I did find it amusing, however, that the game comes with cheat codes. This leads to all sorts of interesting ethical dilemmas: do you use the code to get the holy sword and beat Satan's minions, or will cheating doom your soul to perdition?

Made a wonderful gag gift, though.

Credo looks interesting. Perhaps I'll pick it up.

There are a number of "Board Games with a Religious Theme" listed here,
http://boardgames.about.com/library/weekly/aa042200a.htm
Part 1: Looking for strategy games which incorporate religion

http://boardgames.about.com/library/weekly/aa042200b.htm
Part 2: More games with a religious theme

but I don't think these are like the one I saw either - tho' they don't have pictures.

The lists do include games mentioned earlier by commenters. They ask for extra info: "If you can add any games to the list -- or provide more information about the games already included -- please post a note in the About Board Games Forum.", maybe some of you could add to it.

We're having an unusually heated & hotly-contested local government election for Sydney City Council. This discussion has me thinking of modifying a current board game with appropriate names, places and themes. Snakes & Ladders comes to mind, along with Monopoly, or p'raps something along the lines of Credo (Credo di Dio Crudel!).

CHANCE: Take a ride on the Monorail. Pay the Bank $2 and lose one turn.

As applicable as Aquaman may be to the role of Peter, the apostle Peter in Da Vinci's painting actually does carry a knife (remember Peter cutting off the Roman soldier's ear?) Thus, Lex is more than likely cast in the role of Peter, though how much thought the artist put into that decision is up for debate.

- Kevin
...who's sat through one too many Sunday School lessons...

At the very least there was Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew. Also, Malchus, the Roman guy whose ear Peter cut off, also immortal. Plus, there're all the timetravelers from Up the Line. This leaves out the three Nephilim, and any number of other immortals who would have probably shown up.

Therefore, one has to conclude the seating arrangement must have been different on Earth-LS.

Same thing for Luthor with a Kryptonite knife. Why would that be an attribute of *Peter's*? Probably Aquaman had to rest his prosthetic.

Incidentally, the canonical match of apostles' names to figures in the Last Supper wasn't determined until the early nineteenth century, when captions on a mid-16th century copy were discovered. Before that, people were matching the apostles up by age and by guesswork. Two hundred years of retcons.

Rao be with you all,
C.

*grin* I know I've had words over doctrinal issues here. It's fun debating with others who have a clue. We just don't come to blows.

I hate to argue a point, any point, with the hostess with the mostest cool weblog, but this was not the period of the first flame wars [unless you count the literal flambeeing of dissidents]. I won't claim the ancient Greeks invented flame wars, but they certainly indulged in them. One of the more notorious must be Diogenes' dismissal of Plato's definition of a man [an erect, featherless biped] by depositing a plucked chicken labeled "Plato's man" in a highly public place. Plato seems to have attracted this kind of thing; his fellow disciple of Socrates, Xenophon, complained in his own philosophical works that Plato misquoted, misrepresented, and misstated the Master's teachings for his own ends. Further trawls through the history of ancient philosophy would no doubt produce more, although I don't think Seneca's piece on the deificaiton of the Emperor Claudius would count, as Claudius was in no condition to riposte by then.

However, since the early church fathers were able to swing the fate of empire, or at least start a pretty good riot over their doctrinal points, I'd have to admit that their flame wars were a lot more deadly. Plato may have thought about killing Diogenes, but the rest of Athens was too busy snickering for him to assemble a decent mob.

My cats just gave me worried looks because of extreme giggling. Nice one.

• Andreas Steding has an English copy for trade. The odds that you have something he wants are very low (the odds of anyone having something he wants, other than Broadsides and Boarding Parties, are very low - I suspect some of the games don't actually exist). However, can't hurt to try.


• This chap on BoardgameGeek has a copy for trade, which might be in English. He doesn't say what he wants.


• New French copies are available from Le Valet d'Couer, a game store in Quebec. They are CAD24.95 (about USD19). The cards are nicer than those in the English edition, but of course they're in French, and this is an extremely text-heavy game, so unless you read French quite well you're out of luck.

Running the cards' text through an automated online translator would add a whole new dimention to the game! (er. A dimention is a demented dimension, by the way.) In fact, a whole new sub-game of demention (which isn't saying to twice) could be developed by trying to say which differing translations from different translators came from the same 'ur-text'.

Then you set them to music.

Haven't yet worked out a knitting-related link, tho' I feel that something could be developed along the lines of Madam Defarge's coded knitting. Or again, maybe make a warm drink now & bed. Just back from a final performance of a funny (yet oddly disturbing) production of "The Merry Widow", am perhaps a bit 'overexcited'.
At least it stops me from trying to work out an epilogue to John Adam's "The Death of Klinghofer" the film of which was shown here in the annual January Sydney Festival. Abu Abbas, who planned the Achille Lauro hijacking, was captured almost a year ago in Baghdad and died in custody earlier this month. I keep mentally connecting elderly men in wheelchairs dying violently. Probably better to think on the ferry trip home on a moonless night under the stars.

And speaking of bar fights, Jerome was another scrapper, although most of his pugilisms were confined to written letters. His long-time companion, Paula, (ever heard of her? she was the better hebrew and greek scholar, and made it possible for jerome to translate the vulgate) restrained him from the worst excesses of his temper.