Back when VV1 was created, people took offense to the golden child being similar to Jesus Christ. I have to admit, I never made the connection until I saw it discussed. As far as I know, VV has since steered clear of any implicit religious references.

Now, I'm usually not someone who gets up in a bunch over religion (being agnostic myself), but I noticed a few things that quite frankly, shocked me a bit.

Okay, I get that the story is about heathens, which is a term I don't like, but I can get over that. Cue villagers 'explaining the truth' to the heathens. Whose truth? The heathens seem to do just fine, and the totems suggest that they have a deity of their own (who may or may not have charged the pain totem). But here are our villagers, explaining the heathens how wrong they have been.

Not only that, but the villagers destroy their property, and take over their land. Now, I know it's just a game, and I doubt that the refence to crusades is intentional, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm supposed to be a vengeful God.

Am I the only one? I feel sorry for the heathens because the whole point is to take over their village..

Maybe it would've been better to refer to a force of Nature (Mother Nature, or, Isola's magic Nature!). You know, focussing more on spirituality and balance in nature than a deity?

Having that said, I'm absolutely love the new concept! Well done LDW

The Heathens didn't seem to be doing all that fine to me - they didn't know how to fix the aqueduct, Master Healer couldn't heal herself, nor could trainee healers. The area where the Heathen mommy hangs out is a mess. Most of the Heathens don't seem to have any ambition, they just hang around. To me, the Villagers seem to be helping the Heathens. It's not like they chase the Heathens off, or imprison them. Once a Heathen is "converted", he/she begins to help out with improving the village, and becomes a member of the Villagers. Maybe the "conversion" they experience is from laziness or lack of know-how, to learning that you have to work to make things better for yourself and your family. And remember, it was the Heathens who captured and imprisoned the Villagers in the first place, but the Villagers were resourceful enough to free themselves, so they deserve to be able to fight back a little.

With all that said, I don't read too much into the "god totems" or the "explaining the truth", or "converting the Heathens". The designers had the right and the freedom to tell the story however they wanted. I just have fun with the game.

Thanks, LDW, for another fun, entertaining, "I'm never gonna get my laundry done", game!

Well, there's that. But they built all the buildings. Well, they use them, so it's more or less implied. For sure they built the totems, or at least, that is also implied. They even have a hierarchy, implied by the chief and the different "ranks" of masks. The fact that they appear to live a boonies life, does not reduce their right to live their life the way they want to.

As for the villagers being resourceful, I think they are related to McGyver

We're fenced in? Let's build a storage bin out of it! LOL

Yeah, as I read the game description, I got uncomfortable. Sure, it's just a game, but I wouldn't enjoy one that made fun of people who believed in a god or gods, or suggested they needed to be converted or changed, so I am sure not going to have fun with a game that seeks to convert so-called heathens. There are just too many real-life examples of that happening, and it has never gone well for those who were considered in need of conversion. The creative team surely has enough talent to come up with a better concept.

It does bother me a bit. I was a bit hesitant to buy when I read the description, but thought to myself, it's a game. A game, now that I've played it, I like.

I play and don't think of the real world, which I tend to do with a lot of games.

Everyone has their own opinion, and they have a right to that opinion. That is respected here, as long as all is in line with our Forum Rules. Arthur is very interested in everyone's viewpoint, but we do want it to be a discussion, and not an argument or flame war.

I'll also recommend reading this post.

The rest of this thread has been moved temporarily, and the parts that stayed within our rules/posting guidelines will be back. Until then, I'll just leave the thread locked to keep it from getting off track.

We really want discussion to focus on VV5, and its merits as a game. I will ask that people refrain from taking the discussion too much into the area of 'real world religion' since that inevitably leads to flame wars and/or personal criticism. The game is, after all, about the inhabitants of Isola and their history - not about Planet Earth and its various cultures. We will remove any comments that we believe stray over the line or invite others to do so.

Edit: the thread is now unlocked, but we will continue to monitor the discussion and intervene, if necessary.

There has always been a spiritual nature to these games, but I have to agree with Vampess. The first time my grandson wanted to play the game, he asked me, "Grannie, what's a heathen?" That broke my heart. I didn't know how to explain it to him, so I looked it up in the dictionary, but I couldn't read the definition. So, after playing Last Day of Work games with my grandsons since VV1 came out, for the first time, I said, "Let's play a different game." It would have been so easy to change the terminology in this game and prevent this religious aspect.

Heathens = Unfriendlies
God Powers = Guiding Hand Powers
Explaining the Truth = Being Friendly
Converting the Heathens = Bringing a new Villager into the Tribe

Words have power, and some words have no good connotations. Heathens is one of those words. I'm shocked at Last Day of Work that they decided to use this word. It seems to me that such a creative team could have come up with better language.

Ok so what would you rather call them? Evil villagers, canibals (not sure if I spelled that right) There are many worse things they could call them so I think that heathen is the best name that they could call them.

@Zippie: The term God Powers is standard gaming terminology, so I don't see a problem with it.

As for the religious aspect, I read on some other thread that some people wanted more temples and stuff like that. So maybe LDW was trying to satisfy that?

In any case, I agree they went a bit heavy handed on the religious aspect without intending to offend people. It doesn't bother me and I know there is a spiritual aspect to the games, but the way they did it in VV5 was kind of, I dunno, more religiously loaded than usual.