Character Theory [SURVEY] Religion in RP?

[Daisie]

Hey, all!

I'm a curious fella who has gone to crazy lengths to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I've done a detailed analysis on the average character height between genres of RP (Ask me if you want to see it). I have an on-and-off, ongoing study of the longterm trajectory of age requirements. I polled a while ago about the vengefulness of characters. Now I'm here to ask about religion!

Just to clarify, this thread is not about religion outside of RP. It is not about whether or not characters should be religious. This is only an exploration of how common religious characters are as a whole, and what themes they exhibit.

That being said, let's start!

1. What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?
   
   • High fantasy.
   • Modern.
   • Science fiction.
   • Historical.
   • My RPs are diverse across these.
   • I prefer something else (explain).
2. How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)
   
   • I lean towards playing teenagers.
   • I lean towards playing younger adults (20s-30s).
   • I lean towards playing older adults (40s+).
   • I play a diversity of ages that doesn't lean in any direction.
   • Other (explain).
3. How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?
   
   • I don't portray any religion in my RPs, real or fictional.
   • Religion is generally placed in a good/heroic light.
   • There is a thorough mixture of good and evil in my religious depictions, that does not lean one way or the other.
   • Religions are most frequently portrayed as neutral entities.
   • Religion is generally placed in a dark/villainous role.
   • Other (explain).
4. Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?
   
   • Most or all of my characters are religious.
   • About half of my characters are religious.
   • I've played religious characters a few times.
   • I've never played a religious character (you've finished the survey!)
5. Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?
   
   • Most or all of my religious characters have believed in real-world religion.
   • There's a thorough mix of real and fictional religions among my religious characters.
   • Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion.
6. Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?
   
   • Yes, most or all of my religious characters have had no proof of the existence of their god, and are lead by faith.
   • There's a thorough mix of characters who lead by knowledge of their deity, and those who lead by faith in their deity.
   • No, most or all of my religious characters have received direct proof of their religion's god.
7. How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?
   
   • My religious characters are largely steadfast in their religion, and I don't usually include a crisis of belief or loyalty in their storyline.
   • I have a thorough mixture of loyal and doubting religious characters.
   • Most or all of my religious characters' storylines have included a crisis in their beliefs or loyalties.
8. How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?
   
   • Most or all of my religious characters with a crisis end up stronger in their religion because of it.
   • There is a thorough mixture of both scenarios.
   • Most or all of my religious characters with a crisis end up abandoning their religion.
   • I don't include religious crises in my characters' storylines.

That's all for now, folks! I might include more questions later on in the thread if I come up with any, but as for the moment, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to give this a run through!

That being said, feel free to also describe some of your characters' relationships with religion in detail! I'd love to hear about it. This all came about through the realization that despite holding my own religious beliefs, most of my characters are still atheist or agnostic, with poor religious experiences in their past. I wanted to see what this spread looked like for others!

 

[Len Auphydas]

firstly, I absolutely wanna see that average character height thing. That sounds fun.

having said that I shall respond.

1) High fantasy
2) Teenagers, I guess.
3) I tend not to include religion in my RPs or stories. There are a couple exceptions, which are mostly mildly antagonistic. Having said that I often have characters with some degree of spirituality, just nothing I would classify as an organized religion.
4) I'm not entirely positive how to answer this... I have at least one where the main characters explicitly do believe in a deity they haven't ever seen, but I wouldn't call them particularly devoted; its just kind of the default position. Does that qualify as religious..? I don't really know. They don't really actively worship them but they do partake in cultural activities that are in the gods honor, including animal sacrifices, offerings, festivals in their honor, etc. Other than that one example, I don't think there's any others which have really broached the subject of religion or gods. Having said that, a number of them would presumably have religious beliefs in the context of the story, they just... Aren't really plot relevant or ever come up.

 

[Lorsh]

1. High fantasy/historical

2. 20s-30s, but as a GM in my current RP, I often play older NPCs.

3. In the context of my current RP, from an IC perspective, it's complicated. Every character, NPC, or PC, is implicitly religious by virtue of being in a medieval society where there is really no other explanation for people's existence. The Holy Temple is an institution with a lot of power. There was a character who was a corrupt abbot, who was kidnapped by one player. It was another player's uncle, which enraged him and drew him into battle where he was defeated. So, the other player secured a military victory and the love of many common people who were oppressed by that particular abbacy, but then his allies negotiated with the enemy and agreed he had committed sacrilege by kidnapping a church official (his knights also accidentally killed 2 monks), so he was fined massively.

4. If I'm in a setting where religion is the norm, esp. nonmodern settings, my characters tend to be religious - though more implicitly. Even modern settings, sometimes I play vaguely Christian characters - though they are usually unspecified or agnostic. Generally, I'm more prone to playing hyperpolitical rather than hyperreligious characters. I am also an atheist irl.

5. The ones I've really played religiously, no. I think I've had characters in realistic settings talk about Heaven and such when consoling people/have identified as Christian, but it isn't a big part of their character.

6. In my fantasy RP, the main religion on the continent operates on faith alone, since their god is not really tangible and doesn't grant magic, even though magic exists in the world. It's just usually considered evil (and... arguably is).

7/8. Haven't done this. When it comes to politically ideological chars, they tend to be diehards, though.

 

[houseplant]

Interesting I'm excited to see more responses!

1. My rp's are diverse and have covered all of these settings.
2. 20's-30's since it's just easier to play my own age range.
3. Tends to be more neutral in my case.
4. A couple of times I've played religious characters, not too many though.
5. A mix. Some are Christian, and the others are following fictional gods if it's a fantasy setting.
6. Mostly operate on faith alone.
7. Mine are pretty steadfast, I don't usually have a crisis.
8. None.

 

[Idea]

Small note: This is mostly referring to my player characters in any character question. NPCs and the like are a lot more diverse in pretty much all of these areas.

What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?

Gun to my head, high fantasy is the most likely, though I would suggest fantasy more generally is my go-to, be it high fantasy, urban fantasy, even science fantasy I have done (and of course I have done others, but this is about the most frequently used ones).

So, proper answer: High fantasy

How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)

Proper answer: Other

I do play a diverse range of ages, including adults, young adults, young children and teenagers alike. Oh and my fair share of immortal beings. The reason I don't answer "diverse range of characters" is because while I do play a fair share of the other ones, characters that are actual children or physically children do really take the cake in terms of what I play.

How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?

Proper Answer: There is a thorough mixture of good and evil in my religious depictions, that does not lean one way or the other.

Unless you have an actual fantasy / mythological pantheon (in which case it will highly depend on the pantheon. I suppose most have a mixture of good and evil, though there having been neutral ones as well, and at least one comprised of different varieties of evil god), I don't usually bring religion into my RPs. I'm generally weary of bringing anything to RPs that is likely to cause real-world-problem-based arguments.

That being said, when I do depict religious institutions and characters who are religious, I most often portray them more positively, but I have made fanatics in the past as well. It's mostly gods that I tend to give a more negative or at least alien outlook on average.

Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?

Proper Answer: I've Played Religious Characters a Few times

With many of my characters coming from fantasy worlds where the gods are just a reality a person might face now and then (and indeed, some of them are characters directly working for or are themselves gods), plenty of my characters are religious, though I wouldn't say it necessarily gets to half, and many of those characters are infrequent worshippers at best, though they are believers in the same way I believe that the computer I'm typing this in exists.

The reality though is that most of my characters, including some of those I just mentioned, are not very portrayed as religious, in the sense that if it's never stated whether they are or not unless the topic is brought up to them (which it rarely is). The reason for this , for one, is that like I mentioned in the previous question I usually try to avoid such sensitive topics as religion or politics because I don't like having such time-bombs attached to an RP I'm on, and two one of my first characters was actually a really preachy character from back when I had more trouble properly separating my IRL thoughts and beliefs from the fiction I am engaged with in roleplay. So my character was extremely religious and very preachy about, and let's just say that although I can't recall quite what followed the embarrassment of it follows me to this day. For these reasons I'm often weary of making an openly religious character.

That isn't to say I haven't done it when the time was right, even outside of the circumstances initially discussed. I've had some characters who are religious but more sublte in their worship, and a character that believes in a god and offers worship to them, but isn't extremely fond of them and more independent-minded. I've also had at least one character that was an agent for the church, and very religious, though it was a fandom character.

Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?

Proper Answer: Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion.

I can only think of two, including the cringe early days preacher I've mentioned. The last character I mentioned is the other one, though while her religion is catholic there some slight differences between the way Catholicism works in that fandom (A Certain Magical Index) and IRL.

Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?

Proper Answer: No, most or all of my religious characters have received direct proof of their religion's god.

Like I mentioned, most of my characters are religious from fantasy worlds, where gods are more a fact of life than an object of faith per say. Indeed some of them ARE that proof.

How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?

Kinda Proper Answer: My religious characters are largely steadfast in their religion, and I don't usually include a crisis of belief or loyalty in their storyline.

Most of my characters who are religious are pretty firm in their beliefs, and I do think I would have had a difficult time not at least bringing into question arguments against it even IC. That being said, the major reason why there were so few crisis of faith is 100% because I've had very few RPs that lived long enough to experience even the early stages of any character arc, let alone one which isn't connected to their main one.

How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?

I don't include religious crises in my characters' storylines.

 

[-Random_Person-]

I haven’t really done much Roleplaying on this site compared to others, but these answers are for my RPing career in general, including offsite, D&D, and other stuff!

1. If I had to choose one, High Fantasy, but preferably any fantasy.
2. 20s-30s, but sometimes other.
3. A mix of good and evil. While I myself dont have any positive or negative views (Being agnostic), I like to make my characters or plots have theri own opinions on certain religions, real or fiction. Of course, I know to reel in the discussions my characters have with others if the rp partner tells me they dont like this, dont feel comfortable, and that stuff.
4. I think most are at least somewhat religious (Not including the characters that are the deities themselves).
5. A fair mix.
6. Also a mix. Some people are more skeptical than others. Also, a small few of my characters actually met the gods they have believed in.
7. Yet another mix. Some got it easy, some put their faith in deities whose motives make less sense to the characters.
8. Most, if not all of them.

Now, just because I RP characters, doesn’t mean that I follow their beliefs. I am Agnostic, and idrc what religion people are, everyone’s themselves, be you!

 

[Daisie]

firstly, I absolutely wanna see that average character height thing. That sounds fun.

It's a bit off-topic so I'll spoiler it at least, but here's that study I did.

Spoiler: 12/03/2022 Character height study

3 genres were observed (selected by thread prefix): Fantasy, Futuristic, and Realistic/Modern.
3 RPs were selected per genre.
3 female and 3 male characters were selected per RP.
9 RPs were selected in total. 54 characters were observed in total.

RPs were largely random [2024 edit: This means I just combed through RPs in the "groups" RP section], though were NOT recorded if:
They had an insufficient amount of total characters
They had under 3 women or under 3 men
Not enough characters displayed their exact height
The age range for characters was clearly observed to reach into teen years

Characters were not observed if they were visibly android or inhuman upon first glance.
Characters were not observed if their gender was not described as male or female.

(Numbers in parenthesis have been rounded to 2 decimal places.)

FANTASY:
Males averaged ~5'10" (70.45 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Males selected: 5'7"/6'5" respectively
Females averaged ~5'5" (65.33")
Shortest/Tallest Females selected: 4'11"/5'8"
Male & female average was ~5'7" (67.88)

FUTURISTIC:
Males averaged ~5'10" (70.22 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Males selected: 5'2"/6'5"
Females averaged ~5'7" (66.56 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Females selected: 5'3"/6'1"
Male & female average was ~5'8" (68.39 inches)

REALISTIC/MODERN:
Males averaged 5'11" (70.78 inches)
Shortest/Tallest males selected: 5'5"/6'2"
Females averaged ~5'6" (66.44 inches)
Shortest/Tallest females selected: 4'10"/5'11"
Male & Female average was ~5'9" (68.61 inches)

Total male average: ~5'10" (70.48 inches)
Total female average: ~5'6" (66.11 inches)
Combined total averages: 5'8" (68.3 inches)

This study has been brought to you by Daisie, your friendly neighborhood pedant.

 

[Len Auphydas]

It's a bit off-topic so I'll spoiler it at least, but here's that study I did.

Spoiler: 12/03/2022 Character height study

3 genres were observed (selected by thread prefix): Fantasy, Futuristic, and Realistic/Modern.
3 RPs were selected per genre.
3 female and 3 male characters were selected per RP.
9 RPs were selected in total. 54 characters were observed in total.

RPs were largely random [2024 edit: This means I just combed through RPs in the "groups" RP section], though were NOT recorded if:
They had an insufficient amount of total characters
They had under 3 women or under 3 men
Not enough characters displayed their exact height
The age range for characters was clearly observed to reach into teen years

Characters were not observed if they were visibly android or inhuman upon first glance.
Characters were not observed if their gender was not described as male or female.

(Numbers in parenthesis have been rounded to 2 decimal places.)

FANTASY:
Males averaged ~5'10" (70.45 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Males selected: 5'7"/6'5" respectively
Females averaged ~5'5" (65.33")
Shortest/Tallest Females selected: 4'11"/5'8"
Male & female average was ~5'7" (67.88)

FUTURISTIC:
Males averaged ~5'10" (70.22 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Males selected: 5'2"/6'5"
Females averaged ~5'7" (66.56 inches)
Shortest/Tallest Females selected: 5'3"/6'1"
Male & female average was ~5'8" (68.39 inches)

REALISTIC/MODERN:Males averaged 5'11" (70.78 inches)
Shortest/Tallest males selected: 5'5"/6'2"
Females averaged ~5'6" (66.44 inches)
Shortest/Tallest females selected: 4'10"/5'11"
Male & Female average was ~5'9" (68.61 inches)

Total male average: ~5'10" (70.48 inches)
Total female average: ~5'6" (66.11 inches)
Combined total averages: 5'8" (68.3 inches)

This study has been brought to you by Daisie, your friendly neighborhood pedant.

Huh. There's both alot less variation than I expected, and not in the direction I anticipated. Interesting.

 

[BuggaBoo]

1. What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?
   
   • High fantasy.
2. How old do your characters tend to be?
   
   • I lean towards playing younger adults (20s-30s).
3. How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?
   
   • There is a thorough mixture of good and evil in my religious depictions, that does not lean one way or the other.
4. Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)?
   
   • About half of my characters are religious.
5. Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?
   
   • Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion.
6. Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?
   
   • No, most or all of my religious characters have received direct proof of their religion's god.
7. How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?
   
   • I have a thorough mixture of loyal and doubting religious characters.
8. How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?
   
   • There is a thorough mixture of both scenarios.

---

Hi!!

I used to do a lot of Urban Fantasy but like being religious was never really an option. If there was, there was a priest or something similar that would do some Christian handwaving like in movies. Oh! And pseudo Wiccan witches too lol. Supers RPs I been in usually have something similar where like you will find one religious charrie but religion plays little in affecting the RP.

By far, I've joined High Fantasies most and like 95% of them are: God of Justice, God of Nature, God of The Sun, etc. and the gods do exist. I like shamans cuz they are kinda like high fantasy witches.

Then like there are like the RPs where religion is paid Zero attention cuz what's more important than Magic Powers! Then there are like the ones where major religions are bad cultist people whose god may or may not exiist and you play like Conan people with no magic.

I'm not too familiar with religion in more 'eastern' high fantasies and how they are portrayed in RPs.

 

[Daisie]

High fantasy/historical

Thank you for responding with this by the way, I added that specifically because I remembered you at the last minute, and I knew that would have to be your answer.

 

[Onmyoji]

1. What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?
   • High fantasy.
2. How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)
   • I lean towards playing younger adults (20s-30s).
3. How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?
   • Religions are most frequently portrayed as neutral entities.
4. Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?
   • I've played religious characters a few times.
5. Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?
   • Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion.
6. Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?
   • There's a thorough mix of characters who lead by knowledge of their deity, and those who lead by faith in their deity.
7. How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?
   • My religious characters are largely steadfast in their religion, and I don't usually include a crisis of belief or loyalty in their storyline.
8. How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?
   • I don't include religious crises in my characters' storylines.

I tend to have my rp as detached from real world as possible (while I did some historical rp, they were still with fantasy elements). Religions in my rps are always fictional, even though they may share similarities to real-world ones. That said, I usually don't have religion as a focus of the rps. ofc there may be religions characters but them being religions does not impact the plot usually, it's more like an 'attribute' of the character, something that shapes their personality, rather than plot device. Which is why I don't usually include religious crises in their storylines.

 

[Rusty of Shackleford]

I'll bite!

1. What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?
   • High fantasy
2. How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)
   • I tend to play young adults, though I have begun to play older characters
3. How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?
   • Religion is generally shown as a philosophy, like any other. Only as good or as bad as those who practice it.
4. Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?
   • About half of my characters follow some religion.
5. Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?
   • All of my characters collow a fictional faith
6. Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?
   • Faith is a huge part of my religious characters, as I believe faith is one of the main themes to be explored with religion.
7. How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?
   • As someone who went through a crisis of faith, I find exploring that immensely interesting, and is basically necessary when I write them.
8. How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?
   • It depends on the specifics of the character and their religion. Sometimes their faith is strengthened, other times they abandon it.

 

[StrixDesmodus]

What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?

• A mix of Sci-fi and fantasy

How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)

• I lean towards playing teenagers, if only because my favorite rp concept takes place in a high school

How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?

• There is a thorough mixture of good and evil in my religious depictions, that does not lean one way or the other

Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?

• About half of my characters are religious.

Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?

• There's a thorough mix of real and fictional religions among my religious characters.

Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?

• There's a thorough mix of real and fictional religions among my religious characters.

Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?

• There's a thorough mix of characters who lead by knowledge of their deity, and those who lead by faith in their deity.

How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?

• I have a thorough mixture of loyal and doubting religious characters.

How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?

• I haven't really gotten far enough into an rp lately to figure this out for any of my characters

 

[GojiBean]

Hoyo Daisie!

What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?

• My RPs are diverse across these.

How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)

• I lean towards playing younger adults (20s-30s).

How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?

• Religions are most frequently portrayed as neutral entities.

Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?

• I've played religious characters a few times.

Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?

• Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion.

Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?

• There's a thorough mix of characters who lead by knowledge of their deity, and those who lead by faith in their deity.

How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?

• I have a thorough mixture of loyal and doubting religious characters.

How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?

• There is a thorough mixture of both scenarios.

Cheers!

 

[Jannah]

Personally I'm religious and have a deep interest in theology so this should be interesting.

1. What RP setting do you most frequently prefer?
   • Usually historical, but I gave dabbled in most genres. I have pretty diverse tastes.
2. How old do your characters tend to be? (If your character's age does not reflect their maturity, please choose the option based on their mental maturity.)
   • Most of my character ages are in the 20's to 30's range, but I have gone younger or older if the story/setting demands it.
3. How is religion generally portrayed in your RPs?
   • Depends on the setting/story. Sometimes religion is not really a major theme at all, but other times it's central to the story. In the case of the latter it tends to be average religious people struggling against the dangers of fundamentalism/extremism and cults (sometimes real religions, other times fictional religions). A lot of these themes I will explore through the eyes of fresh converts simply because the psychology behind what causes people to join extremist groups and cults is fascinating to me.
4. Do you have religious characters (Or characters that were once religious)? Specifically, characters who strongly believe in and worship a deity that others also believe in, and aren't atheist, agnostic, or broadly/vaguely spiritual?
   • About half of mine are at least vaguely spiritual in some way, including devoutly religious. The rest tend to be apathetic towards religion. Rarely do I write characters outwardly hostile towards religion.
5. Out of your religious characters, do any of them abide by a real-world religion?
   • Vast majority of my religious characters tend to be either Muslim or Christian. Muslim because it's my own faith so enjoy telling stories with proper representation. Christian because it's the majority religion in the society I live in and I have familiarity with it.
6. Is an abundance of faith necessary within the religions of your characters?
   • Not always, but the point of some of mine is that they've been brainwashed and misled into extremist sects. Those rarely provide concrete evidence, lol.
7. How many of your religious characters have had an emphasis on a crisis of belief or loyalty?
   • Not their faith as a whole necessarily, but certainly doubts about extremist sects they've been led into.
8. How many of your religious characters' crises end in abandonment of their religion?
   • None. Perhaps some day. Media as a whole tends to be more on the secular and even anti-religious side so I guess a part of me tries to convey a point that good religious people exist too and that not all are crazy extremists.

 

[cherri.]

1. High fantasy
2. I lean towards playing younger adults (20s-30s)
3. Religions are most frequently portrayed as neutral entities
4. About half of my characters are religious
5. Most or all of my religious characters have believed in a fictional religion
6. There's a thorough mix of characters who lead by knowledge of their deity, and those who lead by faith in their deity
7. I have a thorough mixture of loyal and doubting religious characters
8. There is a thorough mixture of both scenarios

I like using religious themes and fantasy religions as a way to process and reflect on my damaging past with religion, it's a nice and non-destructive way to really help me think about it all in perspective!