The Mechanic of "Religion" in Role-Playing Games

[simon_hibbs]

So...why not...they're all true, to the individual...even competing game effects arising from different mythologies are both right and both have effects.

Then what makes them work?  I mean they can't all be true unless "true" means something other then "true", something like "moral" or "valid".

Is it true that a mother loves her child? Prove it. Not all truths are logical, or mathematicaly derivable, yet it is intrinsic to the experience of being human that these things are so.

Even so, in what way does this achieve the goal of making the content of mythology Really True in the game world; in fact it is not Really True but only true if you choose to think so.  This would seem to reduce the religious beliefs to colourful tokenism.

Only if that tokenism has no power, but the common consent that magic works in fantasy worlds shows that in those worlds it is more than that.

 "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. "
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)



Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

Is it true that a mother loves her child?

No.  Or at least, not universally.

Prove it. Not all truths are logical, or mathematicaly derivable, yet it is intrinsic to the experience of being human that these things are so.

It may happen; it may not.  Not everyone is a "natural parent", not "even" women.

Only if that tokenism has no power, but the common consent that magic works in fantasy worlds shows that in those worlds it is more than that.

By tokenism, I am implying it has no power.  After all, the reference to mythology is only there for colour; it does not explicate what magic is nor why it functions.  This is the use of mythology as obscurantism, as an excuse not to explain.

As I say, you are using "true" in a way that does NOT mean True, but means something else.  No, it is not True that at all times among all people everywhere, all mothers love their children.  Even if it were True, we could provide some answers to the questions why.

WHY does tokenism have power?  What happens if I destroy a physical token?  When I summon spirits, is that actually a non-corporeal spirit or just an Aristoi-like shard of my own consciousness speaking back to me?

As I've said before, it's quite legitimate to deny information to players.  But, unless you hope to identify every possible question which might be asked in game up front, then some statements of Truth are needed so that the GM may extemporise on their own behalf.  Frex, IF a spirit Really Is a discorporeal otherworldly entity, it may have access to supernatural sources of information.  If it is only, in essence, a hallucination, then it does not.  If a player attempts such an action, I am compelled as GM to provide an answer implicitly in providing information proffered by the spirit or "spirit".

[simon_hibbs]

Is it true that a mother loves her child?

No.  Or at least, not universally.

Prove it. Not all truths are logical, or mathematicaly derivable, yet it is intrinsic to the experience of being human that these things are so.

It may happen; it may not.  Not everyone is a "natural parent", not "even" women.

Are you saying that love is irrelevent to the experience of being human?

Only if that tokenism has no power, but the common consent that magic works in fantasy worlds shows that in those worlds it is more than that.

By tokenism, I am implying it has no power.  After all, the reference to mythology is only there for colour; it does not explicate what magic is nor why it functions.  This is the use of mythology as obscurantism, as an excuse not to explain.

I'm beginning to despair. Did you miss my post citing the hermetic laws of magic? Do you deny that poetic use of symbolism and alegorical reference have any meaning in human experience? Why do people read Tennyson or Wordsworth? In the same way, mythology gives people an emotional, intuitive way to comprehend and relate to the world around them. To the magician, this is power. There is nothing obscure about it, we all experience it every time we hear beautiful music, or see a well executed work of art. The magician simply makes the intuitive step of thinking that this power can not only change the way we percieve the world, but can also change the world itself. Fundamentaly, that's all there is to it.

you are using "true" in a way that does NOT mean True, but means something else.  No, it is not True that at all times among all people everywhere, all mothers love their children.  Even if it were True, we could provide some answers to the questions why.

I did not say that all mothers love their children, I said that a mother loves her child. Please read what I say, not what' you'd like me to have said because it makes it easier to disagree with me.

WHY does tokenism have power?  What happens if I destroy a physical token?  When I summon spirits, is that actually a non-corporeal spirit or just an Aristoi-like shard of my own consciousness speaking back to me?

Why does it matter? Either the spirit is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality, or your mind is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality. Theologians have struggled with this question for thousands of years. Not all religious philosophers would agree, any more than all physicists agree on the correct physical interpretation of quantum mechanics. So what?

As I've said before, it's quite legitimate to deny information to players.  But, unless you hope to identify every possible question which might be asked in game up front, then some statements of Truth are needed so that the GM may extemporise on their own behalf.  Frex, IF a spirit Really Is a discorporeal otherworldly entity, it may have access to supernatural sources of information.  If it is only, in essence, a hallucination, then it does not.

Why can't deep unconcious recesses of your mind (or rather, that of your character) have access to the otherworld, or divine inspiration?

[/quote]If a player attempts such an action, I am compelled as GM to provide an answer implicitly in providing information proffered by the spirit or "spirit".[/quote]

I've yet to see you provide an example of such a situation.


Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

That's correct. The religious/magical world view is not of a mechanistic world which blindly follows arbitrary formulaic laws. It is a world in which the ultimate reason for being, the ultimate cause and arbiter of destiny is divine authority (in whatever form that takes). To modern hermetic magicians, the laws of names, similarity, contagion, are just as powwrfull and valid as Newton's laws of motion. Will is Power, but not power in the sense only of mechanistic energies, power in the sense that George Bush is powerfull - at a mere word men die and governments fall. This has nothing to do with his physical ability to exert Force according to newton's laws.

I'm not sure how much of that is relevant to the theologies of fictional worlds.  Nevertheless, this then demonstrates that the gods do not in fact exist, in the scenario under investigation.  The dung beetle and the god-risen-daily-newborn are both figments of human imagination, but useful figments for the focussing of an essentially human power.  There is no dung beetle; the dung beetle is just a metaphor for a mental process.

Thus, the mythology is NOT True; a certain kind of postmodern/new age world subjectivity thesis is at work and is True.  If I were a GM, it is that subjectivity hypothesis and its ramifications which I need to understand, NOT the detail of the content of cultic myth.

The religious/magical world view does not require that it's symbolism, or alegory be literaly true in order to be powerfull. Any serious student of religion will tell you that ultimate religious truth is unknowable to mere mortals, for we are neither god, nor gods.

And that is why I laugh whole-heartedly at "serious" students of religion.  

But we are now off track; I grant your theory is internally consistent, but I assert it is modern.  It is a rationalisation based on exposure to multiple, mutually exclusive world myths.  A truly traditional society is unlikely to encounter, within its "borders", ANY social context which validates the beliefs of the next tribe over the hill; any such statement would undercut the extant claims advanced through these myths to legitimacy and authority.  If they went over the hilll to see for themselves, they would find no recognition of their own peculiar mythos and it would be derided as insane.

How does invoking 'psionics' explain anything?

Hmmm...... its just technobabble, but it is a hard statement of Truth.  No messing about with are there gods are not; the answer is No, but there might be constructs that look like and have masqueraded as gods.

Precisely. I'd adjudicate such a face-off using the rules of the roleplaying game in question. My personal preference would probably be Hero wars, but tastes vary. I realy don't see the problem.

The problem is that it has failed to make it clear whether in this fictional world, which of these is "right" and thus how the native resolution system is expected to operate (or, how the system resolves conflicting arguments with qualitatively identical claims to legitimacy).

HeroWars however is not the answer; HW is deliberately obscurantist, IMO, as to the status of the gods, both real and not real.  It provides us with a non-solution, to whit, we dice it off.  But this still implies that both effects were sufficient real to require game mechanical effect, which makes both of them True.  And yet, the mythic content of each may wholly deny the very existance of the other... a claim immediately falsified by the need to roll off!!

[contracycle]

Are you saying that love is irrelevent to the experience of being human?

No.  What does that have to do with the claim "evey mother loves their child".  How hard would it be to find counterexamples?

I'm beginning to despair. Did you miss my post citing the hermetic laws of magic? Do you deny that poetic use of symbolism and alegorical reference have any meaning in human experience?

As am I; we start out talking about the SHARED world and end up talking about internal meaning.  I pointed this out a long time ago, a couple of pages back: Mythology has a tendency to give moral homilies, NOT explain the world as it is.

Why do people read Tennyson or Wordsworth? In the same way, mythology gives people an emotional, intuitive way to comprehend and relate to the world around them.

I imagine they read for fun.  I think that suggesting that mythology is only "for fun" would draw a lot of heat.

And it may well give them a way to comprehend the world around them; the question at hand is what to do when two different comprehensions of the world are opposed.

There is nothing obscure about it, we all experience it every time we hear beautiful music, or see a well executed work of art. The magician simply makes the intuitive step of thinking that this power can not only change the way we percieve the world, but can also change the world itself. Fundamentaly, that's all there is to it.

OK, I can't respond to that without making a bald counterstatement; beauty and art are not magic, becuase magic is convenmtionally used to change the WORLD.  Beauty and art can only change us.  Both are valid as activities; neither is analogous to mythology let alone faith.  In order to claim that this "power" can feed back into the world, you would have to cite evidence and an independnantly verifiable experiment.  Failing that, I feel perfectly free to assert that the "power" claimed by the magician is imaginary.

I did not say that all mothers love their children, I said that a mother loves her child. Please read what I say, not what' you'd like me to have said because it makes it easier to disagree with me.

Which mother?  OK, if you were thinking of a particular mother and child, I, not having access to them, cannot say whether or not she loves her offspring.  If you were NOT thinking of a particualr mother, then you were certainly implying that "a mother" stood for all mothers.  If I do noty make that generalisation, your statememt loses all meaning; it becomes " person known to me experiences an emotion they claim to be love"; of what relevance does this have to the concept of "truth"?

Why does it matter?

Because I'm the GM, and I have to apply modifiers to Summoning rolls improvised with twigs and bits of string after the ritual paraphenalia fell over a cliff.  Does it MATTER whether they have cup, wand, and sword?  

Either the spirit is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality, or your mind is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality.

Which is it?  Whether or not this is known or not in the real world is not important - to me, it is known and the answer is that neither spirit nor mind have direct power over the physical world, we just find it a comforting thing to imagine.  In a game world, however, we have the opportunity to make mythology functionally real; why choose not to do so?

Theologians have struggled with this question for thousands of years. Not all religious philosophers would agree, any more than all physicists agree on the correct physical interpretation of quantum mechanics. So what?

These are not remotely equivalent.

Why can't deep unconcious recesses of your mind (or rather, that of your character) have access to the otherworld, or divine inspiration?

They might.  All it would take is for the designer to say "Let there be unconscious access", and there will be unconscious access.  Bow I, as a GM, am able to extemporise knopwing what the reality of the established game world.  There remains no excuse for declining to say so.

If a player attempts such an action, I am compelled as GM to provide an answer implicitly in providing information proffered by the spirit or "spirit".

I've yet to see you provide an example of such a situation.
[/quote]

Alright.  Bob the Psychic gets a vision that Homicidal Harry is after his blood.  We will examine too scenarios to see the effect of internal and external agents.  Bob summons his spirit to spy on Harry.

Objective agent: an actual disembodied spiritual entity.  Bob summons his patron spirit, which travels magically or otherwise to Harry's location.  I, as the GM, review what Harry is doing at this moment and reveal this info to the player.

Subjective agent: Bob is only imagining that he can summon spirits; he may believe it, he may even "see" spirits.  However, being internal to Bob, they can tell Bob nothing he doesn't already know (although they might tell him things he is not aware of knowing).  They therefore can tell Bob nothing about what Harry is really doing, having no access to any more information about Harry than Bob had to begin with.

I must know which of these scenarios is True, because I am obliged to give the player an answer.

[greyorm]

And that is why I laugh whole-heartedly at "serious" students of religion.

Could you possibly be anymore insulting?

Given the statement I quoted above, I think you owe a number of individuals here an apology for your callous disrespect.

Now, seriously, knock off the line-by-line/out-of-context quoting (ref: your responses to the paragraph about a mother's love. Note that whether or not all mothers love their children was not the point being made, remotely related to the point nor even relevant to the point being raised).

A particularly flamboyant example is your restatement of Simon's statement, claiming he had said "evey mother loves their child." Which, you know he didn't say; and your further deconstruction of what he said,  showing that since you don't know the person he's talking about and then claiming that he must be talking about all mothers is nothing short of assinine.

This kind of psuedo-intellectual "I'm just being logical/I'm so reasonable" you use as "counters" to arguments are exactly why you keep being bitch-slapped by the moderators and tick so many people off. Seriously, you have been here long enough to know better than to keep doing it.

Simon, while your points are well taken, we aren't discussing real-world magicians, symbolism and meaning having power and so forth, so let's drop discussion of all that, except as it relates to the question currently at hand: the use of subjective-yet-true mythology in RPGs (and whether or not it actually interferes with the gamemaster's ability to run a game, as Gareth maintains).

Now, let's get this thread back on track and quit trying to piss on one another with ridicu-logic just because we can.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This thread really got excellent for a while there, but perhaps it's time to call it and think in terms of little spawn-threads with highly focused topics.

I also suggest that people thicken their hides a little bit. We are talking about role-playing, not about what "is," after all.

Best,
Ron

[greyorm]

This thread really got excellent for a while there, but perhaps it's time to call it and think in terms of little spawn-threads with highly focused topics.

Sorry, I cross-posted the above with you (even did a preview!).
Spawn-thread time it is. I'm really interested in actual play examples of a subjective mythology interfering with game play.

I also suggest that people thicken their hides a little bit. We are talking about role-playing, not about what "is," after all.

This is true, however, when a statement is made about real-life people's real-life beliefs, then the thick-hide thing doesn't apply. If someone wants to laugh at the priests and mystic philosophers of a game world, they are welcome to, but since the above is laughter and insult directed towards real, actual people -- some who frequent these boards -- about their real beliefs, I think I'm entitled to a bit of steam at what is an unwarranted and unneccessary attack.

That said, this still holds true. There's a lot of heat going about the subject which need not be there, if we're talking about how it works in a game world, could work or so forth.

[simon_hibbs]

The dung beetle and the god-risen-daily-newborn are both figments of human imagination, but useful figments for the focussing of an essentially human power.  There is no dung beetle; the dung beetle is just a metaphor for a mental process.

You're confusing an example of an explanation as being the only explanation. Perhaps the gods do have a personal existence, perhaps they don't. You don't need to know the truth behind it any more than I need to know the actual physical of Jump Drive to play Traveller.

You asserted that magic can only be explained if mythology is true and the gods are real. I provided proof that this is not the case - explanations exist which do not require that. I did not provide the only possible explanation, any more than a physicist can provide the only possible explanation of quantum mechanics.

The religious/magical world view does not require that it's symbolism, or alegory be literaly true in order to be powerfull. Any serious student of religion will tell you that ultimate religious truth is unknowable to mere mortals, for we are neither god, nor gods.

And that is why I laugh whole-heartedly at "serious" students of religion.  

There is no 'Theory of Everything' and many physicists believe that such a theory may be unknowable. Can I laugh at physics now? Bertrand Russel showed that pure logic is not ultimately provable, can I laugh at logic now?

  "I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. "
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

But we are now off track; I grant your theory is internally consistent, but I assert it is modern.  It is a rationalisation based on exposure to multiple, mutually exclusive world myths.  A truly traditional society is unlikely to encounter, within its "borders", ANY social context which validates the beliefs of the next tribe over the hill;

Theories such as Plato's - that divine power emanated from an unknowable source and differentiated itself into the knowable gods, which manifest differently in Greece and Egypt - his explicit examples. Explanations such as those of Hinduism and budhism, religions that have existed side by side for thousands of years. Hindus believe that ultimately  all the gods are masks worn by the ultimate godhead and through their history have incorporated numerous cults and neighbouring religions into their pantheon. The romans persecuted christianity not becasue they were against foreign religions - in fact it was for exactly the opposite reason. Christianity denied the legitimacy of other religions 9there is only one god), while Rome was extremely tolerant of foreign religions, seeing it as part of the inclusivity and diversity of their cosmopolitan empire. I realy have no idea where you're getting these notions from.

The problem is that it has failed to make it clear whether in this fictional world, which of these is "right" and thus how the native resolution system is expected to operate (or, how the system resolves conflicting arguments with qualitatively identical claims to legitimacy).

Magic has the effects the game system says it has (be it D&D or whatever), You still haven't given me an example of a situation where this objective truth is required.

HeroWars however is not the answer; HW is deliberately obscurantist, IMO, as to the status of the gods, both real and not real.  It provides us with a non-solution, to whit, we dice it off.  But this still implies that both effects were sufficient real to require game mechanical effect, which makes both of them True.  And yet, the mythic content of each may wholly deny the very existance of the other... a claim immediately falsified by the need to roll off!!

A contest in Hero wars does not change the nature of the world, it changes the experience of the contestants. Their faith is tested. The God Learners were monotheists, yet they manipulated and engineered pantheist religions. Orlanthi worship Orlanth, and hate the Lunars but they know the Lunars have gods and magic too. They don't deny the existence of their enemy, but their moral authority. They deny that Yelm is a just emperor, that Rufelza is worthy of worship. This is elementary stuff.


Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

Could you possibly be anymore insulting?

Yes, but only for $20 and SASE.

Edit: I now take PayPal

[simon_hibbs]

OK, I can't respond to that without making a bald counterstatement; beauty and art are not magic, becuase magic is convenmtionally used to change the WORLD.  Beauty and art can only change us.

That's what you believe. Other people believe differently, can't you even see that? Can't you even accept that it migth be possible in a roleplaying game? c.f. The Picure of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde.

Both are valid as activities; neither is analogous to mythology let alone faith.  In order to claim that this "power" can feed back into the world, you would have to cite evidence and an independnantly verifiable experiment.  Failing that, I feel perfectly free to assert that the "power" claimed by the magician is imaginary.

Whoa - are you talking about the real world or possible roleplaying worlds? Nowhere have I said that the religious/magical worldview is true in our world, I have simply explicated it as an example of how to justify magic in fantasy worlds. I had assumed that we had a common scope to this discussion - apparently not.

Which mother?  OK, if you were thinking of a particular mother and child, I, not having access to them, cannot say whether or not she loves her offspring.

Oh, for goodness sake. Do you love your mother? Does (did) she love you? Do you (do you think you will) love your children? All I say is that the existence and reality of love is true - it is to me anyway. Your experience may vary.

Because I'm the GM, and I have to apply modifiers to Summoning rolls improvised with twigs and bits of string after the ritual paraphenalia fell over a cliff.  Does it MATTER whether they have cup, wand, and sword?  

I'm aGM and I have to rule whether Zack SpaceCop can repair his pursuit spacer when his hydrospanner gets shot out of his hand. Do I need to know how the directional ocilator assembly works to do that? Didn't think so. Next!

Either the spirit is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality, or your mind is real and can change the world through expressing it's reality.

Which is it?

Show me why it matters, see my refutations ad nauseam above, and below.

Theologians have struggled with this question for thousands of years. Not all religious philosophers would agree, any more than all physicists agree on the correct physical interpretation of quantum mechanics. So what?

These are not remotely equivalent.

Why not? Why do the fundamental universal laws in a roleplaying have to be explicit and easily understandable, yet those of the real wrld can be held to a lower standard. Surely it should be the opposite?

Why can't deep unconcious recesses of your mind (or rather, that of your character) have access to the otherworld, or divine inspiration?

They might.  All it would take is for the designer to say "Let there be unconscious access", and there will be unconscious access.  Bow I, as a GM, am able to extemporise knopwing what the reality of the established game world.  There remains no excuse for declining to say so.

The designer doesn't need to say that because we realy don't need to know it, see above and below.

Alright.  Bob the Psychic gets a vision that Homicidal Harry is after his blood.  We will examine too scenarios to see the effect of internal and external agents.  Bob summons his spirit to spy on Harry.

-objective agent cut-

Subjective agent: Bob is only imagining that he can summon spirits; he may believe it, he may even "see" spirits.  However, being internal to Bob, they can tell Bob nothing he doesn't already know (although they might tell him things he is not aware of knowing).  They therefore can tell Bob nothing about what Harry is really doing, having no access to any more information about Harry than Bob had to begin with.

I must know which of these scenarios is True, because I am obliged to give the player an answer.

If, as you've already conceded it might be that bob's subconcious (a magician would say something like otherworld shadow, or higher divine nature) has access to the otherworld or the divine font of knowledge. Why can't the disembodies spirit be a manifestation (psionic projection if you like) of Bob's psyche? The point is, you can run the game exactly the same way regardless of which explanation you prefer. You do not need to know. Either concede that, or try again (how many times is this so far?)


Simon Hibbs

[contracycle]

While awaiting sub-threads, I thought I'd comment on this component of Simons post.

Theories such as Plato's - that divine power emanated from an unknowable source and differentiated itself into the knowable gods, which manifest differently in Greece and Egypt - his explicit examples. Explanations such as those of Hinduism and budhism, religions that have existed side by side for thousands of years. Hindus believe that ultimately all the gods are masks worn by the ultimate godhead and through their history have incorporated numerous cults and neighbouring religions into their pantheon. The romans persecuted christianity not because they were against foreign religions - in fact it was for exactly the opposite reason. Christianity denied the legitimacy of other religions 9there is only one god), while Rome was extremely tolerant of foreign religions, seeing it as part of the inclusivity and diversity of their cosmopolitan empire. I realy have no idea where you're getting these notions from.

Yes.  Interestingly, I've just begun reading a work on self-deification in Chinese cosmology and a comparative work discussing Chinese and Greek medicines and the "cultural manifold" in which they occur (their term).

Lets take a closer look at the Romans; the Romans do not, IMO, experience much challenge in the face of other religions.  When they meet a Celtic god, they rationalise it as an aspect of one of their own gods.  Their cosmological theory develops an arm aimed at integrating local deities into the pantheon, bringing all under the state church.  If Roman triumph comes through the blessing of Mars, and a celtic war-god is an aspect of Mars, then Romanised Celts (or Egyptians) can feel comfortable (and maybe a little subversive) worshipping the state cult.  And thus the state prospers.

Very few citizens, let along plebians, would have the opportunity to be exposed to radically alternative religions, apart from semi-sanctioned mystery cults.  Even in such a cosmopolitan society, the Grand Unified Theory of Godhood, which is the pantheon itself, provides the real answer behind "what is the sun" and "why does it rain", rather than the individual cult dogmas.  Apart from the mystery cults, the state religion was rather more formal than meaningful, IMO.  Similarly, in the Buddhist realm, most concerns are not about faith, or salvation, or justification, but simple practical success in a secular endeavour.

[Ron Edwards]

H'm,

I must be losing my touch.

Take it to sub-threads, people. This thread is closed.

Best,
Ron