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Ron twice has attempted to close the thread entitled http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4476">The Mechanic of "Religion" in Role Playing Games; yet the topic is hot, and there seems much to be said about it.

I agree with Reverend Daegmorgan (Greyorm) that Contracycle (Gareth?) has been very offensive; and with Simon that he has also been somewhat rude and even illogical in his attacks. I also happen to think he's right, at a certain level.

If the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong. Either the myth is the truth about the world, or it is not. If it is, in that sense, true, then any myth that is contradictory must be false. If the myth is solely about spiritual realities and has nothing to do with how the sun actually crosses the sky, then our hypothetical clerics have completely misunderstood core concepts of their respective faiths--neither chariots nor beetles are involved, really, but are just symbols for something else.

And as the referee, I have to know how the sun really moves across the sky, just so that I've got that answer when the players attempt to determine it for real; unless I'm prepared to railroad them by thwarting their every effort to make that determination.

That said, I think that there are a lot of solutions to this; and that Contracycle puts forward some notions about religion that are simply not true.

Christianity is noted for being uncompromising in its position on many things; yet its chief apologist in the twentieth century, C. S. Lewis, declared that it was far more open to other faiths than the atheism he had previously embraced. If you are a Christian, he said, you are free to believe that all other religions contain truth, that they have value in them worth considering, and that they indeed may be true insofar as they do not contradict Christianity. If you are an atheist, you must believe that all religions are fundamentally wrong and false at their most basic premise. Thus although Reverend Daegmorgan is a pagan priest and I am an evangelical Bible teacher, we may actually be closer to each other in many important ways than either of us are to James Randi's debunking organization. We at least agree that there is something more than the physical realm, even if we may argue about what it is.

I mention this because Gareth seems to think that it is not possible for the people of one world religion to think there is any truth at all to another world religion. Historically this does not hold. Henotheism has a long and strong history, and I mentioned it in that thread. If I am an Israelite, I do not have to believe that the Philistines are completely wrong about Dagon, or that Dagon does not exist and so can never help them. All I have to believe is that Dagon is not equal to The Lord and cannot hope to defeat Him. If I'm a Philistine, I certainly do believe that there are gods in other countries, and that these are real gods; I just believe that Dagon is greater.

And if it happens that The Lord says that the sun moves across the sky because He ordered it to do so, and Dagon says (and I have no idea what Dagon actually says on this point) that the sun moves across the sky because it is the chariot of glorified victorious Philistine warriors, then the Israelites believe the Philistines are mistaken on that point, and vice versa. They don't believe that the other is mistaken about everything, or that the opposing deity does not exist, merely because there's a mistake on one point. They probably believe that the other deity is lying to steal the glory for himself.

It is equally plausible to have a situation such as the Roman inclusivism, which frequently came down to, "Oh, you call him Ares/Tyr/Ishtar, but in Latin his name is Mars", and that some of the stories were things about which there was some uncertainty ("Gee, we don't actually know how the sun moves across the sky, because there are several different ways the gods are said to do it").

Yet in the end, something has to be the reality of the situation, or else the world has to be such that all reality is subjective.

I'm not comfortable with "all the reality is subjective". I can't really imagine my two clerics reaching the sun and one seeing a dung beetle while the other sees a chariot. I can see that it might work, but I'm with Gareth on this--it doesn't really solve the problem, it only makes it worse.

But I would extend the henotheism concept further. Hey, I run Multiverser--this works for me. There is a universe somewhere in which the sun rides in Apollo's chariot every day, and another in which a dung beetle pushes it, and another in which the sun was created on the fourth day and set to rule the day, and another in which it coalesced over millions of years from particles of gas being drawn toward each other. Each of those mythologies is true in some universe; each of those deities, where a deity is involved, exists and exercises that power. Now, only one can be true in this universe, that is, the sun that crosses the sky daily is doing one of those things--or maybe something entirely different, however Frey or Amaterasu Omikami or Surya handle the sun. That doesn't make the mythology false; it only means it applies somewhere else. The fact that in this universe a dung beetle pushes the sun across the sky does not invalidate Apollo's claim that he drives it in his chariot every day. The gods are the same, the mythologies are all in a real sense true (and in a sense that does not require them to devolve to metaphor and symbolism), and no one's beliefs are really falsified.

Of course, I still agree with Gareth: we still have to know which one actually takes the sun across the sky in this world.

Or maybe they take turns.

I also agree that there is a great difference between whether spirits exist and actually work on our behalf (a supernaturalist view) or the powers are merely extended from ourselves (a naturalist/materialist view, ultimately); and I agree that in the latter case you're really talking about psionics, not magic. Simon is right that at one level what matters is what works; but like Gareth I feel I, as referee, would need to know why it works and how it works if I am going to have to present the outcome of its efforts. For one thing, if this power is spirits beyond myself, much depends on their reaction to me; but if it is my own power, far more depends on my strength and whether I am overy tired.

I hope the discussion can continue with a bit more civility.

--M. J. Young

Hey howdy M.J.,

I just wanted to say that I appreciate your well thought out commentary.  You obviously possess a wealth of knowledge concerning theology and mythology, not to mention history and culture.  Although my knowledge is insufficient to add to this discussion, I look forward to reading more meaningful banter. :)

Thanks,

- Ted

I'm a professional witch.  That is, I have 13+ years experience practicing witchcraft and studying various occult systems.  I also sell occult/metaphysical books and supplies, and get paid to read tarot and dispense magical advice.  As a result, I often hear some variation on this question: "so which one of these magical systems works the best?"

One of my stock answers is this:

"Consider each magical system as a computer OS.  The hardware the OS runs is always pretty much the same: electrons flowing through silicon chips to activate and manipulate various devices.  Strings of "on" and "off."  Now, what the OS does is turn those strings of "1s" and "0s" into something that the human mind can comprehend (to one degree or another), and turn commands from the user into codes the hardware can understand.

"I can run Windows, Unix, Linux, or even a Mac emulator on my PC.  All have different strengths and weaknesses.  They all look different, they all act different, they all have a different "baberous words of evocation."  But they all run the same hardware.

"So, instead of "which is best," the question becomes "what do you want to do, and how do you want to do it?"

At this point, far too many people look at me with blank, uncomprehending eyes, and I sigh and hand them a copy of Malborough's Charms, Spells, and Formulas or something similar.

Where I'm going with this is that I am fine with a certain degree of subjectivity, as this has been my experience of mysticism in the real world.

I would direct the interested to Hero Wars, specifically the Narrator's Book and the chapters on HeroQuesting.  It is suggested that a group of heroes questing in the otherworld might encounter a Black Knight (as from Arthurian literature) or Humakt (the Orlanthi god of death), depending on whether their quest started from a Malkioni (vaguely Arthurian monotheist) church or an Orlanthi temple.

So, M.J., I might answer your question as to who is right by asking who cast the spell that got the party to the sun.

In Hero Wars, the heroes sometimes enter the otherworld by taking onthe roles of gods and heroes and re-enacting their myths.  Thus, a band of hero questors might encounter a god or hero in their quest, and never know that they were encountering other hero questors from other times and places.

See also Neil Gaiman's Sandman and American Gods, as well as Alan Moore's Promethea for other ways in which the subjective perceptions of a world's underlying reality might be well done, dramatically.

Greetings M J,

So, does anyone else here miss Art Bell yet?

Quote from: M. J. YoungIf the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true?

In terms of game mechanics it matters only in-so-far as the myth directly affects the world mechanic.

As you say...

Quote from: M. J. YoungIt ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong. Either the myth is the truth about the world, or it is not. If it is, in that sense, true, then any myth that is contradictory must be false. If the myth is solely about spiritual realities and has nothing to do with how the sun actually crosses the sky, then our hypothetical clerics have completely misunderstood core concepts of their respective faiths--neither chariots nor beetles are involved, really, but are just symbols for something else.

Nope.

As applied to game worlds the myths work only subjectively.

If a world mechanic postulates that vimanas are aerial vehicles of the gods then, perhaps, a PC may be able to be conveyed via vimana to a destination.

If, however, a world mechanic postulates flying chariots which can by pulled only by specific animals (which is the case in Greek myth) then, in game terms, a character would need to A) aquire said chariot, B) find said beasties, and C) hope Zeus doesn't fire-bolt yer arse outta da sky!  ;)

In other words, in game terms, it is not so much the substance of the myth as how the elements of the myth are applied to the mechanics of the game world.  Not what the players may or may not believe about the world, but rather what has been established as true within the reality of that world.

IE: If minotaurs are listed in the creature catalog but trolls, gnomes, and mummies are explicitly left out then this establishes the window dressing of the world.  Window dressing which can, should, and all too often isn't, based upon the specific myths, legends, and pantheons that are being borrowed from.

For instance:  AD&D mixed so many creatures from myth and legend it was hard to keep track what was and wasn't in existance in my game world for my players.  Also my world had no cavaliers.

Why?

Because it was my world, created from the ground up, and I established, within the world mechanic, what was.  I even had a solid two months of game play outlined, complete with random encounter charts and all that fun stuff you seem to find time to do when you're in HS.

But my BIGGEST problem was trying to explain that the sun rotated in opposite to how it does in our real world.  I can still distinctly recall trying to explain this (pointing to the game map, then table to point to the floor) and ending up just throwing in the towel and saying "sure, yeah, you're right I have it all wrong" just to get back to the game.

And, yes, there was a point to why the sun rose and set in reverse.

Of course the lesson I came away from that session was (since the person I was having the problem with was a newbie player and I really didn't want to confuse them) was that all this stuff needs to be written up clearly and concisely for the players.

Now, that said....

Quote from: M. J. YoungAnd if it happens that The Lord says that the sun moves across the sky because He ordered it to do so, and Dagon says (and I have no idea what Dagon actually says on this point) that the sun moves across the sky because it is the chariot of glorified victorious Philistine warriors, then the Israelites believe the Philistines are mistaken on that point, and vice versa. They don't believe that the other is mistaken about everything, or that the opposing deity does not exist, merely because there's a mistake on one point. They probably believe that the other deity is lying to steal the glory for himself.

Again, as a point of belief, this really would be part of the back ground story and would have very little, as outlined, to do with actual game mechanics.

Assuming a game with physics relatively similar to our own the explanation of "how" and "why" things might work isn't really all that important, so long as the explanations relay the fundamental facts of matters.   IE: the sun rising and setting in the same manner, the sun radiating heat, the sun providing light, and etcetera.

Quote from: M. J. YoungI'm not comfortable with "all the reality is subjective". I can't really imagine my two clerics reaching the sun and one seeing a dung beetle while the other sees a chariot. I can see that it might work, but I'm with Gareth on this--it doesn't really solve the problem, it only makes it worse.

The bit about the dung beetle, it can be argued, is both allegorical and symbolical.  There was a good explanation of this very myth on the History Channel (I think) a few months back.  They tend to replay their programs after a bit, keep an eye out for the once about egypt.

Now to your comment.  It's really a hard one.  This delves squarely into cosmology, and there were various models at various times for how the celestial bodies worked.  Of course in games with multiple pantheons you are quite right, there would have to be a larger meta-explanation to govern this since every sun-god can't actually be up there....

Or can they?

It may be that the "gods" don't really pull the sun at all?  Maybe each region has it's own luminescent orb?  Or, then again, maybe the gods are just going to the great Starbucks in the space station orbiting above the horizon to have a laugh?

Quote from: M. J. YoungI also agree that there is a great difference between whether spirits exist and actually work on our behalf (a supernaturalist view) or the powers are merely extended from ourselves (a naturalist/materialist view, ultimately); and I agree that in the latter case you're really talking about psionics, not magic. Simon is right that at one level what matters is what works; but like Gareth I feel I, as referee, would need to know why it works and how it works if I am going to have to present the outcome of its efforts. For one thing, if this power is spirits beyond myself, much depends on their reaction to me; but if it is my own power, far more depends on my strength and whether I am overy tired.

Well there is a sort of division in most games between elementalism, spiritism, and daemons.  (Ok, so I just coined my own terms to try and break this all down.)

Elementalism is the manipulation of energy forces.

Spiritism is the manipulation, use, or reliances upon spirit energies.

Daemons, obviously, are those ultradimensional preternatural beings which grant, or use their own innate powers on behalf of, to someone who binds them/seeks to enter their service.

That said, I've always had a problem with Psionics.  I don't really know why, save that most systems treat it as a cross between the forms above.  I've also thought of it as purely "mind over matter", and as such should have required very strong belief... or something.

Then again my first (and only) introduction to game mechanics governing psionics was in AD&D.  Which literally treated it as another form of magic.  (I know some DMs who adapted the Psionic system to use in place of the native magic system, so I guess some liked it.)   I refused to use/allow psionics in my games.

My loss, I know.  Luckily none of my players cared for it either.

Of course, now that I read your post, I realize that my real problem with Psionics wasn't the system, but rather the lack of a adequate explanation for how it worked.




Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

QuoteSo, does anyone else here miss Art Bell yet?

Well, I didn't listen to him much, but I do miss him.  I hope that he got that rocket of his...

Quote from: M. J. YoungIf the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong.

Hero Wars handles exactly this kind of situation. Each priest has a Mythology of [my deity] ability, plus various magical powers. You'd handle a situation like this as a contest between their mythology abilities, perhaps augmented using various magical powers derived from the myths in question. In the end, whichever wins directs the ritual qurest they are both participating in into their god's mythic otherworld. It's a streightforward test of faith.

Of course two such pairs of priests could engage in the same contest and the Apollo priest could win in one case, and the Ra priest in the other. You sem to be assuming that the world is always experienced in the same way by different people, that the world is 'static' in the sense that it always obeys predictable mechanistic laws. in a magical world this is not necesserily the case, the world may present itself differently to different people, it is an animate force, it may even have it's own agenda because the world is itself magical or even divine.

Therefore I appreciate your attempt to bridge the gap between myself and gareth, but I'm afraid on these points it is unspannable.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: simon_hibbs

Quote from: M. J. YoungIf the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong.

Hero Wars handles exactly this kind of situation. Each priest has a Mythology of [my deity] ability, plus various magical powers. You'd handle a situation like this as a contest between their mythology abilities, perhaps augmented using various magical powers derived from the myths in question. In the end, whichever wins directs the ritual qurest they are both participating in into their god's mythic otherworld. It's a streightforward test of faith.

I don't feel this answers the question.  Why is this an test of faith in the first place?  In the scenario given, they are going to see the sun - not engage in demonstrative piety.

Lets say the Egyptian priest rolls high, and the Apollonian priest rolls low.  The characters travel to the sun, and see that it is indeed, before their very eyes, a vast ball of dung being pushed by an exceedingly large beetle.

What is the Apollonian priest to make of this?  What does the Apollonian priest say to others when he returns to the temple?  What happens to the Apollonian priests world-system; surely it has been severely challenged.

I agree with MJ that to a large degree most instances of this sort of thing will be accomodated fairly easily; but this is why I have claimed previously that I don't see much faith, as we use the term, at work.

QuoteYou sem to be assuming that the world is always experienced in the same way by different people, that the world is 'static' in the sense that it always obeys predictable mechanistic laws. in a magical world this is not necesserily the case, the world may present itself differently to different people, it is an animate force, it may even have it's own agenda because the world is itself magical or even divine.

Thats fine; that certainly would be the assumption that would come to without any indication to the contrary.  To go back a step, the way I read your first sally in this direction, I read it as "seeing as the world is symbolic, it can be symbolic in a game too"; I hence attacked the first part.  If instead we say "in this game, the world IS subjective, and itself is divine" then there are no problems and we move on to discussing how that actually works in the game.

I'm not sure that HW actually does discuss this, though.  So Simon, if you were running an HW game and this very test was performed by two PC's, with differing interpretations of what the sun is, how would you resolve the consequences of the discovery that it can be either, depending on who won the contest?  I'm not talking about what they actually see, so much as how you would expect them to react to what they see?

Quote from: contracycle
I'm not sure that HW actually does discuss this, though.  So Simon, if you were running an HW game and this very test was performed by two PC's, with differing interpretations of what the sun is, how would you resolve the consequences of the discovery that it can be either, depending on who won the contest?  I'm not talking about what they actually see, so much as how you would expect them to react to what they see?

Such a situation isn't explicated specificaly in the rules, true. Perhaps I spoke too soon. This issue has come up on the Hero Wars discussion boards, and hopefully similar situations will be covered in the HeroQuest rules.

In Hero wars (or the upcoming HeroQuest), a contest involved competing abilities, and the participants have a certain degree of controll over the amount of risk they are prepared to take in the contest. Take big risks, and you can either win big, or lose big as a result. A complete defeat for a character in the above situation would equate to a complete loss of faith. A minor defeat might lead to a minor crisis of faith, the penalties for which would be the standard ones proscribed by the rules. i.e. a penalty to relevent abilities (mythological lore, magical affinities, etc), much like a wound effect in physical combat.

Religious faith is based on personal conviction, acceptance of doctrine and the evidence of the senses. If I as a priest of Aries have had it demonstrated to me that my religion is lacking, the fact that another priest of Aries says he defeated a priest of Ra in such a contest is little comfort. My faith has been shown to be lacking at least. How can I now go and contiinue teaching the myths of my religion in good faith?


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: M. J. YoungIf the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong.

I'm going to focus on this one little point here, mostly because this sort of point is often used in discussions I have seen and they are rather flabby IMO, no offense to MJ.

What I mean is, so what if the set out on a quest to find out who moves the sun across the sky. Imagine doing that today. How would you do that? Imagine someone doing that back in the time of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. How would they do that?. I mean they could walk East to where the sun sleeps for the rest of their lives and find all sorts of interesting things but never find out how the sun is moved across the sky. I mean, just because they are crazy enough to go on a quest to find out how the sun moves across the sky does not mean they will ever find it, hence why such myths weren't dispelled so handily. It's not like just walking down the street to the chemist to find out what moves the sun across the sky. It could conceivably take the rest of your *players* lives to find out, and even then you may not even get close. Or they eventually get there and find Appollo and a dung beetle playing rock,paper,scissors to see you has to move the sun today.

My point here is that while maybe such things will need to be either this or that because both religions can't be right, a lot of those things are simply unprovable. The sun may just be a bad example, though. What's a myth that can be more practically confirmed?

Quote from: Jack Spencer Jr
My point here is that while maybe such things will need to be either this or that because both religions can't be right, a lot of those things are simply unprovable. The sun may just be a bad example, though. What's a myth that can be more practically confirmed?

I think that in a magical world, where magical rituals based on myth can produce demonstrable effects, that such matters must therefore be provable. I imagine the contest in question might involve both priests performing their differing rituals, invoking their gods and simultaneously calling up a vision of the sun - whichever vision appears wins. Something like that.

In the end though, this only proves the superiority of the faith of of one priest over the other. In the end, I believe all such contests will reduce down to this. I don't believe that an absolute proof of religious truth is possible in this world, and I fail to see why it's either necessery desirable in a fantasy world either with or without magic.


Simon Hibbs

Quote from: simon_hibbsI don't believe that an absolute proof of religious truth is possible in this world, and I fail to see why it's either necessery desirable in a fantasy world either with or without magic.

It's funny you should say that. I have just posted to a thread in RPGnet about the movie Signs and noted the similarity to the movie Pulp Fiction. It works a lot like that, I think.

In my games, what the Priests would see would depend on whose area of influence they were doing the looking...if communing from Greece they would see Apollo in his Chariot, if from Egypt the Beetle...if from somewhere else...depends on whose gods control it.
If no religion specifically controls it?
They see what they expect to see...and can each argue the other is wrong.

In my games, these game religions are factually true...Winds occur because of the Zephyrs etc...

I have a proposal for a thought experiment.  Let us imagine a world (som of) whose inhaitants believe it to be flat.  Furthermore, for reasons we don't really need to care about, a ships captain decides to sail off the edge of the world (to commit suicide maybe), which according to the maps is over there.

It seems to me that whatever answer you give to this problem would make a statement about the reality of the world.

If the ship falls off, everyone was right.
If theres no edge, they were wrong (although they would not know what shape the world really was yet)
If it depends on what the captain believes, or what the crew believes, or what the mass of the populace believes, then we have a subjective universe.

Once such an answer was given to the players, it will be perforce True as far as the game goes; if it is changed later, some explanation for the initial understanding which is satisfying to the audience must be given.

Now I'm heavily into exploration of setting; I'm highly likely to construct a reason and go look at the edge of the world, just because I think it would be a cool thing to "see" in this medium.  I would wonder what the GM has imagined about this already.  I'm thus quite likely to compel the GM to give me an answer, given the opportunity.  Many actual games at the table (as opposed to products on the shelf) will totally deny me the opportunity to see this with my "own" eyes by keeping me occupied with the foreground rather than the background up until the curtain falls; but it would still, perhaps secretly, be on my list of Cool Things To Do in that game.

So, I'd like to fish for comments on that scenario.

Quote from: M. J. YoungIf the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true, and when he and his party gets there--perhaps containing a cleric of Ra and a cleric of Apollo, trying to settle the matter once and for all--they are going to discover either that one of them is right, or that both of them are wrong.

OK, let me use the same quote Jack did and take a slightly different spin on it - emphasizing the "settle the matter once and for all" part.  Wanting to settle things once and for all is a perfectly good thing (in a game world or in real life), and it can lead to other good things (in a game or in life).  But it almost never works out that way - things are almost never settled for once and for all, anywhere.  Add a little alternate cosmology/physics/whatever to a game world (of MANY different flavors, not just "subjectivity"), and there's no end to the possibilities.

Maybe the Ra priest is right - for a while.  Then the Apollo priest is.  Or they each have variations on a third, underlying "fact" - that might not also be the final, settled truth.  Maybe reality changes based on what's uncovered during this expedition, and maybe that change is retroactive, and maybe it doesn't and it isn't.  Why does anyone (GM, player, whoever) need to know which of these it "really" is, as long as they can manage (to the particular play groups' satisfaction) an enjoyable game experience?

The question for me, in an RPG, isn't what the Ultimate Truth is, it's whether I can make the events work in my game.  Some groups need to explain how it could be that the sun was once pulled by a chariot and is now pushed by a dung bettle - maybe they need an Ultimate Truth.  Others just don't care.  They know what (if anything) they can ATTEMPT to do about this dung bettle situation (kill it, "believe" it back into a chariot, whatever), and that's all that matters.

I'm reminded of the Dying Earth Uber-magic preventer - if you think up a way to get a HUGE benefit for no risk out of the system, it doesn't work.  You think you're smarter than the eons of wizards that preceded you?  Think again.  The specifics of WHY it doesn't work either don't matter, or can be made up on the fly, whatever the gaming group chooses.

In a game world, knowing the Ultimate Truth - or even knowing whether there is or isn't an Ultimate Truth to know - is hardly required.  Some groups may find it helpful, or even essential - others don't care.  One of my GM's is very good with the "not even knowing" bit - he intentionally doesn't even give himself trully Ultimate Truths.  Our answers are always contingent, and we're never even sure on what they are contingent.  But sometimes, we figure out pieces, and that turns out to be helpful in the game world.  Sometimes those pieces contradict each other, and sometimes we can figure out why - other times we can't.  Once or twice, that kind of inconsistencey has caused a game to self-destruct, but not often.

That works for me as a generally accurate description of real life as well.  Except for the inconsistencies causing a self-destruct part - that doesn't happen to the real universe.   Little pieces of it, maybe, but not the whole thing.  For which we should be very thankful . . .

Gordon

Perhaps the quest changes reality, or the quest is an intervention by mortals that shifts the balance one way or the other.  By interacting with characters from their myths, PC's can shape reality.  This isn't the same as introducing slack relativism into your game -- rather, it protagonizes your PCs to the extent that they are intervening in the very structure of the universe they play in.

If I go on a quest to the realm of the gods and aid the air god in proving his superiority to the sun god, I have changed the universe.  The air priests and the sun priests might have debated the matter for centuries until my intervention settled it.

Quote from: M. J. Young

If the Greeks believe that Apollo drives the sun across the sky in a chariot and the Egyptians that a dung beetle rolls it across the sky, why does it matter which is true? It ultimately matters because I'm going to wind up with some idiot player who figures out how to go on a quest to see which is true,
--M. J. Young