Syncretism in HQ

[James Holloway]

Now whether it is possible in Glorantha to start "seeing" the point of a new religion without ever having been formally initiated into it is another question.  

I think that's at least part of Illumination.

[droog]

Why don't you just make up your mind? There are two or three different but consistent ways to address this problem. Why don't you just pick one and run with it?

I think the complaint is that Glorantha as a gaming product ought not to force the players to do this for themselves. Which is possibly reasonable. For myself, I like the open-ended nature of Gloranthan metaphysics, but other developments have disappointed me in the past and surely will in future.

Look at it this way--you can use Glorantha, along with the YGMV mantra, to explore your own ideas about these topics. I can certainly see the case for magic not really existing, for example. And maybe that's what really happens at the end of King of Sartar--the people find out, the dream fades.

[James Holloway]

I think the complaint is that Glorantha as a gaming product ought not to force the players to do this for themselves.

If you like. But clearly most people don't have  this problem -- they just put whatever interpretation they want on the material and away they go. The books as written suggest a couple of obvious interpretations. Most people conclude that theirs is the "right" one rather than saying "there are a couple, but I picked this one." But in practice there's not much difference. People have been playing games set in Glorantha for, what, 25 years now? It clearly works at least a little bit.

[droog]

I think the complaint is that Glorantha as a gaming product ought not to force the players to do this for themselves.

If you like. But clearly most people don't have  this problem -- they just put whatever interpretation they want on the material and away they go. The books as written suggest a couple of obvious interpretations. Most people conclude that theirs is the "right" one rather than saying "there are a couple, but I picked this one." But in practice there's not much difference. People have been playing games set in Glorantha for, what, 25 years now? It clearly works at least a little bit.

I know that. You know that. But one of the problems here is that several people are offering explanations that do not take account of contra's concerns. It seems to be the old problem of 'YGMV, but you're wrong.'

[James Holloway]

I know that. You know that. But one of the problems here is that several people are offering explanations that do not take account of contra's concerns. It seems to be the old problem of 'YGMV, but you're wrong.'

Not at all. Contra is asserting that the metaphysics of Glorantha "don't work," or "don't make sense." They do, but only if you're willing to accept some things he clearly isn't willing to. No one is criticizing his vision of Glorantha -- he has complained extensively on this and other threads that he hasn't got a vision of Glorantha, and that the Glorantha material as published makes it impossible for him to have one.

His position in this thread has been moving from "it's impossible" to "the material is confusing," and he has only now started to say "well, I suppose I could do it this way," to which I and I suspect everyone else gladly say "indeed you could."

[contracycle]

What do you mean, nobody has magic powers? Everyone has magic powers in Glorantha. I know for sure that in my games this would work.

Could you clarify this for me? Looking at the game mechanics I see magic powers that work - magical abilities have effects on the game world. So are you saying that IC these powers and there effects aren't "real" but merely exist in the minds of the users and targets?

Let me try to give a proper discussion to this.

You may be familiar with a certain kind of behavior, probably Sim, often seen in D&D Fora.  Someone says "I wonder what a society with magic would really look like?  I wonder how you would build castles in a world where heroes can fly on griffins or magic carpets?"


Some of the results are very weird.  I saw a long discussion on RPGnet about this topic once, and the eventual sort of model they settled on was a big stone box buried in the earth.  Over there is the pegasus eyrie; over here the storage of magic-users magical components.  The gate such as it is has been Blade Barriered and warded etc.

The inevitable problem with this approach is that it becomes industrial very quickly.  The buried fortress that protects against  Roc's, with its concrete base that protects against umber hulks, looks very Napoleonic, architecturally.

Similarly, an attempt to construct a plausible economy in the context of a Vancian magic system gets strange quickly.  And yet this kind of seizure of opportunity, projection of cause of effect, action and consequence, are grist to the gamist mill.
--
But now lets look at Glorantha.  The problem here is that Glorantha's history, in human terms, looks very much like our real world history - so much so that it is in fact quite easy to see Glorantha in a non-magical light.  No magic is necessary to understand the human geography of glorantha.

This is highlighted by the discussion of the Lunar conquest of Tarsh.  As discussed above with James, the idea of a formal conversion of religious faith is less compelling than the idea that people merely adapt to the prevailing powers that be.  They accmodoate and unjust; they rationalise and reify the ideological changes, if any, they undergo as part of this new social order.

And in all this, there is no need to cite magic to make Glorantha work the way it does.  In fact, Glorantha makes more sense without magic than with it for the same reasons.

So if you stand far enough back, and squint right, its quite possible to see the description of Glorantha as the description of a non-magical world, seen through the eyes of people who THINK it is magical.  Just as, say, a real world Celt might have thought of the real world.  Just as, say, the dancers in a bronze age ritual might have percieved their own entrance to an Otherworld through a combination of drugs, autosuggestion, and trance.

And if it is the case, as appears verified above, that there are no conclusive statements about the magical nature of Glorantha in the Gloranthan canon, and ALL of them are subjective statements by people who believe in magic, then the fact that the canon asserts the exostance of magic is only a local perception - it need be actually true in Glorantha proper, and all the canon would still make sense.

So, I am not asserting confidently that there is no magic in Glorantha.  But the non-magical Glorantha is, ironically, a hypothesis that explains all the available data.  And, no citation from the canon can contradict this view, because all canonical statements are made in the voice of NPC's.

This is roughly the angle that I think Mike also sees as implicit in the text, although we differ on the implications.

And if the mystic or theist should fail, blame the messanger and not the message. He was obviously not up in his studies or failed in his devotion and must try harder. The road to enlightenment, or oneness with God or whatever one you're after is hard.

Or, thats a subjective rationalisation of the fact you cannot do magic after all, and that ultimately is why it failed.

[James Holloway]

So, I am not asserting confidently that there is no magic in Glorantha.  But the non-magical Glorantha is, ironically, a hypothesis that explains all the available data.  And, no citation from the canon can contradict this view, because all canonical statements are made in the voice of NPC's.

Sure, OK. That involves redefining "magic" in such a way as to make things like the giant floating eggs* "non-magical," but you could definitely run the game that way if you liked. Warlord Chronicles style.

*The existence of  which is asserted not by characters but by the game text.

[contracycle]

Not at all. Contra is asserting that the metaphysics of Glorantha "don't work," or "don't make sense." They do, but only if you're willing to accept some things he clearly isn't willing to.

No no no.  The assertion that I am wilfully refusing to understand, or simply not suffiently intelligent to understand, is simply not fair.  Not least of all becuase I have only ever asked to have the issues explained.  The problem is that in the explaining, we all to often adopt the same dodgy technique that Gloranthan texts use, which is to switch between in-character and out-of-character statements without any clarity about which we are using at any given time.

All I want is a chapter headed "how glorantha works behind the scenes".  Every other game I have provides this sort of thing.

His position in this thread has been moving from "it's impossible" to "the material is confusing," and he has only now started to say "well, I suppose I could do it this way," to which I and I suspect everyone else gladly say "indeed you could."

Its impossible because it is confusing and contradictory, because there are no objective statements.  Because it is contradictory, I cannot get a model in my head that makes sense.  And while I may agree that certain things could be done in certain ways, that does not necessarily apply as a general case.

For example, so far we have been discussing theism by default.  In this situationa, it is prima facie reasonable to say, OK, the existance of your god does not challenge the existance of my god.  We can just let 'em fight it out.  But does that still make as much sense when we place a Malkioni next to an Orlanthi and ask the same question?  Because the Malkioni is going to say "there is no god but Allah", roughly speaking.  So the specific case for two theists does not necessarily, in my eyes, apply to this case, where one party does have an absolutist faith.

[contracycle]

Sure, OK. That involves redefining "magic" in such a way as to make things like the giant floating eggs* "non-magical," but you could definitely run the game that way if you liked. Warlord Chronicles style.

No.  It means seeing that there in fact no magical floating eggs, but rather that we have the accounts fo some people who believe there are.

*The existence of  which is asserted not by characters but by the game text.

But as was mentioned above, ALL the game text is subjective, every last bit of it.  Or at least, there is no way to determine when the text is speaking authoritatively or subjectively.  The problem is not only the prevalence of in character monologues by a long way - its endemic to all the text.

[James Holloway]

But as was mentioned above, ALL the game text is subjective, every last bit of it.  Or at least, there is no way to determine when the text is speaking authoritatively or subjectively.  The problem is not only the prevalence of in character monologues by a long way - its endemic to all the text.

That's certainly something you said, all right. It's an interpretation you put on the text. But I don't see it. To me, the egg bit on p. 164 of the rulebook, the Basic Magic chapter and so on are clearly the voice of the author: out-of-game statements about how the system works. Playing it your way could  be fun, but it's definitely not the only way.

[James Holloway]

For example, so far we have been discussing theism by default.  In this situationa, it is prima facie reasonable to say, OK, the existance of your god does not challenge the existance of my god.  We can just let 'em fight it out.  But does that still make as much sense when we place a Malkioni next to an Orlanthi and ask the same question?  Because the Malkioni is going to say "there is no god but Allah", roughly speaking.  So the specific case for two theists does not necessarily, in my eyes, apply to this case, where one party does have an absolutist faith.

As far as I know, the Malkioni assert that the beings worshipped by the heathen are merely very powerful supernatural beings, not "gods" per se. Which would seem to be a very fine distinction. Whether this statement is "true" or not depends very much on how you define "god." But they don't deny the existence of theistic entities, as is made very clear by the existence of spells relating to them in the Abiding Book.

[James Holloway]

No no no.  The assertion that I am wilfully refusing to understand, or simply not suffiently intelligent to understand, is simply not fair.  Not least of all becuase I have only ever asked to have the issues explained.  The problem is that in the explaining, we all to often adopt the same dodgy technique that Gloranthan texts use, which is to switch between in-character and out-of-character statements without any clarity about which we are using at any given time.

Despite the fact that I've spent a lot of time discussing what people in the setting might do, I hope that I've made it clear that I'm speaking out of character.

Look, I think part of the problem is that this thread is so long and covers so many sub-points. It might be worthwhile to split it off. If we decide not to, though, could we maybe get a brief statement about the elements of Gloranthan cosmology that are specifically unclear to you?

I think that so far we have addressed a couple of these:

1) do heroquesters change the metaphysical nature of reality?

a) (me) yes, within certain limits -- they cannot do so freely, but reality is a little bit flexible.
b) (Mike) no, the rules are metagame and used as a tool of director stance.

I think both these answers work fine -- obviously I like mine best.

2) do people have reliable experience of the existence of their gods?

Sure, yes.

3) given that people have reliable experience of their gods, how can conversion happen?

I don't fully understand this question, I have to admit.

4) where does magic come from?

From the otherworlds, or, in the case of talents, the material world.

Are there any other areas you have trouble with?

[Mike Holmes]

Mike really does talk about Glorantha as if it were the real world so that's what can be confusing, "The trouble here is trying to explain to the modern rational mindset how this all works." Given that the game was written and is played by such people, I'm not sure who else needs it explained.

I do not talk about Glorantha as if it were the real world, or at least I'm not making any such attempt. I apollogize for any confusion if what I've written looks to say something like that.

I have compared the actions of the characters in Glorantha to those of people in the real world. We have to do this because this is the only guages as to what's "realistic" or believable. That is, you have to say, "if it were true that X, then what would a real person do" in order to evaluate whether or not something is rational, logical, believable, etc. My argument is simply that, since some people in the real world do base their actions on faith, that it's not absurd to expect people from faith-based Gloranthan societies to act in a similar fashion.

Is that any clearer? To try to elucidate, the counterargument seems to be that since the Gloranthans have more evidence than real world people you can't make a direct comparison. That if people in the real world could see magic happening, or go to see the gods on the other side, that they would simply act as if these things were just natural phenomena.

The people who I'm betting do not need this explained as much are those who, while not many of them may have the faith-based mindset neccessarily, at least understand how people with that mindset act. If you assume that the only way for characters to make decisions is the way that the rationalist in our world makes decisions, then you'll have trouble understanding the Gloranthan mindset. I posit, however, that if you've had any exposure to faith at all, that the faith-based mindset is not hard to grasp, and it's not hard to understand how the characters in Glorantha respond to their reality as the game describes it.

Mike

[James Holloway]

That is, you have to say, "if it were true that X, then what would a real person do" in order to evaluate whether or not something is rational, logical, believable, etc. My argument is simply that, since some people in the real world do base their actions on faith, that it's not absurd to expect people from faith-based Gloranthan societies to act in a similar fashion.

And, of course, people being people, they sometimes act one way and sometimes another. This is the thing with conversion -- some people convert because of the material inducements, some convert for philosophical reasons, some convert because they have a gun to their heads. Some leave town to go somewhere they can worship in peace, some leave town to join the resistance, some stand up in the clan ring and shout at the converters.

Every hero's approach to the conversion process is going to be different.

[soru]

But now lets look at Glorantha.  The problem here is that Glorantha's history, in human terms, looks very much like our real world history - so much so that it is in fact quite easy to see Glorantha in a non-magical light.  No magic is necessary to understand the human geography of glorantha.

I think I am starting to see where you are coming form now.

Out-of-game, I would say that it is true that a design goal for (modern, say since 1990 or so) glorantha is to come up a system of magic that would naturally fit into a 'jazzed-up' version of things that look somewhat like real world historical societies.

Rather than take the description of the magic and extrapolate the society, you take the description of society, and see where magic would make things cooler.

soru