Fortunately, religion depends as little upon theology as love upon phrenology. —Israel Zangwill

gET oUTA hELL fREE

THEOPOLY is obviously derived from the classic (stolen) board game MONOPOLY (TM). You might recognize the card that says GO TO HELL, GO DIRECTLY TO HELL. Following is a (preliminary) rough outline for a possible THEOPOLY game. I first thought this up on 7 May 2000.

The McGuffin, the tokens being pursued, are indulgences, which of course require money to obtain. The MONOPOLY streets are replaced with Holy Shrines. Houses and hotels are replaced with Holy Tokens or Relics. Players attempt to make pilgrimages to and land upon those shrines. Each time a player makes a pilgrimage to (lands on) a new shrine, a fee is paid for a holy token to place on the shrine, and a holy relic to place in the player's personal store. Each relic is worth a century of indulgences. The winner is the player with the most relics when they've filled all the shrine sites with their tokens — their reward is SALVATION. The losers, of course, get DAMNATION.

TECHNICAL NOTE: The tokens could be colored or lettered or numbered stones or die-cut cardboard. No matter.

The Community Chest cards are replaced with Grace cards, which give to or take away from a player's store of relics and indulgences. The Chance/Chants cards direct players to various locations or perform various penitential actions, such as chanting, praying, self-flagellating, burning synagogues, etc. The utilities and railroads are replaced by Temples of Sin. Jail becomes HELL; GO TO HELL is temporary and means you are out of play for some number of turns, although a GET OUT OF HELL FREE card (or coughing-up enough indulgences) will spring you from Hades for now.

In play, when each player passes GO they collect some money, money which may then be used to buy goodies: shrine tokens, relic tokens, indulgences. Hmm, maybe GO should be renamed REBIRTH, as in a spiritual rebirth. "I wanted to be Born Again but Mum said no."

Note that shrine tokens are for ADMITTANCE - payment is required to enter each shrine the first time. So if you have already landed on a shrine, you needn't place another token there and needn't pay for re-admittance. But if the first time you reach a shrine of a color-group set, and another player already has their tokens placed on all the shrines in that set, then before you can place your token there, you also have to give that player a token. This represents your contribution to that player's holy order. Whenever you have visited all the shrines in a set, you get an extra indulgence.

(Hmmm, what to do about holy orders? I'll have to think about that... Team play, right? Holy order and holy societies, tokens required for membership, and they can coordinate certain moves while still trying to send each other to eternal damnation. Something like that.)

Players also must pay when landing on sin sites - if you land on a sin site, then one of your tokens goes back to the pot - you must select a token to remove from a shrine. Some shrines are holier than others, some Temples of Sin are more fun than others, and players must pay more to get into them. So that this isn't too sectarian, the shrines are named after holy places of many religions.

Play until one player attains Salvation and the rest are cast into Eternal Damnation — until the next play.

Gentle Readers:   If you have any suggestions for the naming of shrines, or of other rules or aspects of Theopoly, all your contributions will be welcomed and credited. Click here to email me. —Ric


RESPONSE 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Whelan" [brianwhelan@hotmail.com]
To: [ric@sonic.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 2:21 AM
Subject: Theopoly

Hi Ric, I was amazed to read your witty imaginings of a game called Theopoly. I have actually made a game that is so close to what you described that I did wonder if you had read a (London) Times article about it. The game at the moment is called Salvation-Damnation but I thought the name was not catchy enough and came up with the name Theopoly. In a late attempt to find out if there was such a word, or if anyone else was using it, I found you on the web.

If you are at all interested, I can send you the article as an attachment for you to see. This is either an example of synchronicity and a pure coincidence or an imitation, which I consider the sincerest form of flattery. Either way I did enjoy your spiel.

I found it hard to engage in the other articles and asked myself where does Ric live and would he be interested in some copies of the game? I live in the UK.

It is a big hit amongst Catholics particularly. (Bene­dictines love it!)

Cheers

Brian


VISITORS:
The DEMONIC POSSESSION & ANGELIC VISITATION Game



Face it: as a human being, you're lonely. People ignore you, cats and dogs avoid you, corporations cynically engage your wallet and credit but not your personality, government taxes you and orders you about. You have no real friends.

What you need are: invisible friends. There are many possible invisible friends available: aliens & angels, deities & demons, spirits and soul­monsters. They're everywhere!

It can be hard to get personal attention from deities and devils themselves, but if you play by the following rules, you can be ministered to by their representatives, the Angels and Demons that abound over & upon & under our good green Earth. And maybe you'll make some friends.

HOW TO PLAY

  1. Roll one or more dice to determine whether you'll try for an ANGEL or a DEMON or other SPIRIT in this round, as follows:
    1. Odd number: ANGEL
    2. Even number: DEMON
    3. Off the table: ancestor
  2. Variant diceplay: one die or roll determines the VISITOR presence, another die or roll determines the number of VISITORS to be invoked.

  3. Invoke your visitor(s). Pray/plead; and/or practice animal and/or human sacrifice (see HUMAN SACRIFICE FOR MORONS for details); and/or perform other ritual(s). Money may be expended; convert all currencies to US Dollars (US$) for scoring purposes. Failure to account for all rituals and expenditures may result in forfeiture of your soul, if any.

  4. Keep score of the efforts expended and the results obtained. Score as follows:

      EFFORTS:
    • Each ritual performed...... -1 point
    • Each animal sacrificed..... -1 point
    • Each human sacrificed...... -2 points
    • Each US$100 expended....... -1 point
      RESULTS:
    • Each demon materialized.... +3 points
    • Each angel materialized.... +2 points
    • Each ancestor materialized: +1 point
    • Each unintended spirit..... -2 points
    • Each benign/comatose spirit: 0 points

  5. AT THE END OF EACH ROUND: In multiple-player games, the winning player may compel their SPIRIT(s) to perform actions as desired, to the benefit or detriment of the losing player(s). In single-player games, the player receives benefits or punishments based on their positive or negative score. Non-playing observers may be included in any rewards / punishments. Any participants are likely to become possessed by invoked demons. Yow.
DRSB ! Bisbee ! Coati Works ! Elvis !!

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