Goonhub
12-07-2024, 03:59 PM
I'm a Catholic catechist, so take everything I say as coming from that kind of background. But- in my opinion, the TV tropes chaplain priest is honestly entertaining. As has been said above, the image of the chaplain as seen in the game is very satirical. They prance about in witchfinding gear and shoot vampires. It's not a serious commentary. Biblefarting/ect is funny because it's a subversion what you'd expect.
Changing it to just Holy Text boilerplate is... well, it's boring and I don't really see a reason why it needs such a drastic change. Also the sprite just looks like an offbrand bible, which doesn't really help things. When there's a vampire running around or a ghost terrorising the place, you don't *generally* go looking for your Evil Mc Evil Clown Worshipper. You go looking for the chaplain. (Who, by the way, usually wear the white dog collars- that's what they're called- regardless of faith so that they're actually recognisable) No need to remove a chunk of trope from a bible-thumping vampire shooting trope when just adding more customisation does the same.
HOWEVER - A lot of other servers allow you to choose these things. Some on the character selection screen where you specify chaplain, some on opening your holy book or chaplain gear or whatever. Having the default Holy Text stick around- hell, even just the 'default' bible- until someone first draws Faith or something and then you get to pick from whatever's as an option- is a pretty standard solution. Or even just default-unlocked job rewards to reskin it- from my experience, the main problem at the moment is that the other texts in the machine don't have the same powers as the default bible, which kind of kneecaps you in playing something different if you wanted to.
I do also second that christianity is an easier thing to make slightly satirical, given it's securely established and has some well-worn tropes (which the chaplain role revels in) without treading a super fine line which this game and assorted community isn't going to be able to. Or at least, I don't trust them to.
Changing it to just Holy Text boilerplate is... well, it's boring and I don't really see a reason why it needs such a drastic change. Also the sprite just looks like an offbrand bible, which doesn't really help things. When there's a vampire running around or a ghost terrorising the place, you don't *generally* go looking for your Evil Mc Evil Clown Worshipper. You go looking for the chaplain. (Who, by the way, usually wear the white dog collars- that's what they're called- regardless of faith so that they're actually recognisable) No need to remove a chunk of trope from a bible-thumping vampire shooting trope when just adding more customisation does the same.
HOWEVER - A lot of other servers allow you to choose these things. Some on the character selection screen where you specify chaplain, some on opening your holy book or chaplain gear or whatever. Having the default Holy Text stick around- hell, even just the 'default' bible- until someone first draws Faith or something and then you get to pick from whatever's as an option- is a pretty standard solution. Or even just default-unlocked job rewards to reskin it- from my experience, the main problem at the moment is that the other texts in the machine don't have the same powers as the default bible, which kind of kneecaps you in playing something different if you wanted to.
I do also second that christianity is an easier thing to make slightly satirical, given it's securely established and has some well-worn tropes (which the chaplain role revels in) without treading a super fine line which this game and assorted community isn't going to be able to. Or at least, I don't trust them to.