I dig L&D quite a bit, and will be adapting elements from both that game and the Medieval-Authentic Companion for the pseudo-16th-century campaign I've started prepping.  One of the biggest challenges is adapting the clerical prayers to the Reformation era. In a setting where Protestants and Catholics worship the same God but view the other side as heretics deserving harsh correction (at best) or death, how does one determine which side's clerics get their prayers answered? (LotFP is a fine B/X variant in many ways, but I've always felt it was a pretty lazy move to not change clerical magic once 17th-century Europe was declared the default setting.)  I haven't figured out a concrete solution, but what I've got so far is that the effects of any "active" prayers/miracles are automatically negated if used against another Christian religion.  Still not great, but I suppose it'll do for a stopgap.  

I'm really curious: Pundit and other L&D referees, if you were to run a L&D campaign set in, say, 1580, what changes would you make to the cleric to make it more period authentic?

Quote from: nightlamp;1121383I dig L&D quite a bit, and will be adapting elements from both that game and the Medieval-Authentic Companion for the pseudo-16th-century campaign I've started prepping.  One of the biggest challenges is adapting the clerical prayers to the Reformation era. In a setting where Protestants and Catholics worship the same God but view the other side as heretics deserving harsh correction (at best) or death, how does one determine which side's clerics get their prayers answered? (LotFP is a fine B/X variant in many ways, but I've always felt it was a pretty lazy move to not change clerical magic once 17th-century Europe was declared the default setting.)  I haven't figured out a concrete solution, but what I've got so far is that the effects of any "active" prayers/miracles are automatically negated if used against another Christian religion.  Still not great, but I suppose it'll do for a stopgap.  

I'm really curious: Pundit and other L&D referees, if you were to run a L&D campaign set in, say, 1580, what changes would you make to the cleric to make it more period authentic?

Haven't played it yet, I'm only here to ask you share said house rules if it's not so much to ask.

Quotehow does one determine which side's clerics get their prayers answered?

why not both? no need to address exactly who or what is answering them, sure the in-game world folks can claim god or aliens or whatever they like, from meta standpoint its not important so long as it works.

Well, there's a few ways you can do this.
The easiest way to do this would probably be to just assume, in a similar way to how in the Dark Albion setting I presume that both Catholics and Orthodox clerics (and in fact Sufi Muslims) all get their miracles from the same universalist God, that in fact the Rosicrucians were right, and God is a universal deity that really doesn't care about the individual dogmas of faiths so long as they are of genuine faith in a true and living god most high.
That is, in fact, a Renaissantist (late renaissance) view.

Alternately, you could posit that Catholicism is right (as are the Orthodox, because their divergence from the faith is over insignificant matters) but that the Reformation is a heresy, in which case only the Catholics have clerics, and instead Protestants might have some kind of pseudo-clerics actually born of the deceptions of demons.

Or conversely, protestantism could be right. The corruption of the church in the late 15th century leads to God abandoning the church, and no (or very few) new clerics are born. When the Reformation starts, some of the remaining clerics abandon the clerical Order and instead become defenders of the protestant faith, while some Catholic clerics end up supporting a counter-reformation and seeking to restore the Church.  You could thus make it that in Reformation England, there's no clerical order, and far fewer clerics as a class in general than in earlier times. That would make PC clerics very special, but would also lose some of their social power, no longer working under a huge institutional order, and would no longer be seen as important as sound theology (and it would be difficult to discern whether a protestant miracle-working preacher was a true cleric, a faker, a papist, or a heretic using demon-based powers).

Are there any toes that won't be stepped on following that last suggestion?

The Inquisition will be making a personal visit to whoever is involved in that.

meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

Quote from: Slipshot762;1121918meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

Exactly.

If you don't have a Protestant miracle-worker and a Catholic miracle-worker in the same group of PCs, what does it matter? It's a game, not a documentary.

Quote from: Slipshot762;1121918meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

That's exactly how I would do it. Again, it would require a kind of schism in the clerical order; the Catholics might keep it, but the protestants would undoubtedly remove the hierarchy of it, which might in some ways give Protestant Clerics more freedom, but at the same time less support.

Quote from: Slipshot762;1121918meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

...because actually ALL the magic comes from the devil, as the PCs should discover in the worst possible way!

Quote from: Slipshot762;1121918meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

I'm not always a fan of the path of least resistance, but this definitely seems the easiest way to approach the issue.  Thanks everyone!

I would like this as a suppliment with guns and stuff. WFRP type stuff is popular now (again) so this could kind of fit that niche.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1122288I would like this as a suppliment with guns and stuff. WFRP type stuff is popular now (again) so this could kind of fit that niche.

Lion & Dragon does have rules on guns. And cannonballs.

Quote from: Slipshot762;1121918meh give both sides their magic and miracles and let each side claim the other is working for the devil, the dm need not give an official answer to who god is supporting

That's how I always do it. Maybe God gives miracles to the good people on any side; maybe it's powered by personal faith.

Or you could just not have a Cleric class and avoid the whole issue. Distribute any necessary abilities to other PC classes and to unclassed NPC scholar, wizard, wise woman/witch, etc etc types.

I would suggest its more interesting to still have a cleric class. But the idea of being powered by personal faith is definitely not medieval-authentic.  Saints are chosen by God.

I respect what Lion & Dragon is. Even though it is definitely not my taste in fantasy RPGs.

I respect the work Pundit put into it. And I respect the audience it serves. And I am glad of its success.