Ron twice has attempted to close the thread entitled 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?

M. J. Young wrote: 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?

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

So, does anyone else here miss Art Bell yet?

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

simon_hibbs wrote:

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

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.

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.

contracycle wrote:
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?

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
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?

simon_hibbs wrote: 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.

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.

M. J. Young wrote: 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.

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.

M. J. Young wrote:

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

What's a myth that can be more practically confirmed?

I think one of the real disagreements here has to do with what is and is not metaphysical, in the literal sense, within a given game universe. If divinity is largely a metaphysical issue, or entirely so, then you don't need to fomulate mechanics or answers for any of it. If, on the other hand, there is some concrete link, then you will need mechanics.

Here's an example:

Remember Ars Magica? One of the things there was something called the Dominion, which was the Aura of the Church, of God, of miracles, etc. Now Dominion had a definite, measurable effect on reality: magic was hindered by it, for example. I think there was also a way to do a detect spell that would pick up how much Dominion was around, just like how much Magic Aura or Faerie Aura there was.

Now in this universe, there is a definite, demonstrable presence, locally referred to as Divine. Whether there is or is not Dominion is not up for debate; it's not a matter of faith, because it can be proven. As to whether the Dominion results from the more or less direct presence and attention of God, that depended on exactly how your campaign worked (and on which edition of Ars Magica you were using).

On the other hand, you could happily run Ars Magica without this mechanic, and say that Divinity is a matter of faith, period. Thus you would just drop out the mechanic for Dominion entirely, and see what happened. Of course, you might well want the odd miracle around, which would be fine so long as what happened did not have some kind of extra measurable effect --- it just happens and is very difficult or impossible to explain. In that sort of universe, Christianity is a question of faith.

Personally, I happen to like that kind of thing. Why shouldn't magicians in the European Middle Ages be Christians, just like most other people? And as to the argument between, say, Christians and Jews about whether Jesus was the Messiah, they can argue it to their hearts' content without ever being able to prove anything.

It seems to me that this is all a matter of whether you want religion (and magic, for that matter) to be about faith or to be demonstrable.

damion wrote: 2)Relativism:The priests see different things. Or maybe if you leave from Egypt you find a dung beetle, but if you leave from Greece you find Appollo.
Nicely prevents conflict, but prevents the myth from being 'used' , other than as background. No stealling appollo's horse and stopping the sun in egypt.

contracycle wrote:
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. ....

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

Its desirable and necessary becuase the above is Gloranthas primary, and extremely significant, weakness. It renders the game unusable to except in the most abstract mechanical way.

If the answers are to be found in these otherworlds, what are these answers? What is the sun? If multiple otherworlds disagree on what the sun is, then the fact is that the Answers are NOT in these otherworlds; all you will get is something that makes you feel good and reifies your worldview.

I agree that many of these issue are not material to the religious message; that is exactly why I regard it as inexcusable to fail to explain essentially mundane aspects of the world on the basis that someone, somewhere has a belief about them.

This statment, for example:

What you experience depends on which otherworld you visit, each of which magcialy maps on to the middle world in which the sun is a fiery ball in the sky. However each of these otherworlds provide usable magic in the middle world.

I can't say exactly what the answer is for your example world, because I don't know enough about it. All I can say is that there are ways of resolving this situation that do not require objective proof on religious issues, one way or another.

contracycle wrote: If the answers are to be found in these otherworlds, what are these answers? What is the sun? If multiple otherworlds disagree on what the sun is, then the fact is that the Answers are NOT in these otherworlds; all you will get is something that makes you feel good and reifies your worldview.

I can only respond to this statement by asking "why". WHY do people experience conflicting "truths", and WHY are they, nevertheless, able to perform magic.

...that it is such a sore point in the Gloranthan community that there is a reflexive reaction against even discussing the topic.

Edit: lastly, NO claims are incidental to an argument which claims to be informed by Divine Revelation, IMO.

Second edit: Just to reiterate that I am not inherently opposed to subjective worlds; I love Mage, frex. My objective is to argue that the issue cannot remain unadressed; if a world is to be subjectively formed, then that subjectivity is the Truth which must be conveyed to the GM.

simon_hibbs wrote:
At a metagame level - because the game designer made it so. At an in-world level, because the world IS. I think therefore I am. Philosophers in the real world have struggled with this since at least the time of Xenophanese and still not even the most ingenious scientists and philosophers of our age can answer it. Does that make games set in the real world unplayable?

Why do you keep insisting on a literal interpretation when that is not relevent to the discussion?

Fair enough. But is a world is intended to contain within it the same variety and richness of religious experience and belief as some poeple believe is available in the real world, why can it not be so?

I guess I'm having a great deal of trouble understanding the issue on a practical level. I understand the theoretical arguement, as has been said its the same theoretical arguement that's been going on since mankind first conceived of supernatural forces.

But to take this back to the practical I'm left with a big "so what?". And maybe that's because I don't understand CC's point completely.

There's the old theological question of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". What I'm hearing you say Gareth is that if the game does not provide a concrete answer to such questions, then the GM cannot possibly adjucate the game appropriate ("what if the PCs captured a bunch of angels and ordered them to dance on a pin...I need to know how many will actually fit")

This to me is essentially the same thing (in the days before modern science) as asking "what is the sun really" and worrying about what you'll do if the players actually find a way to go there.

Is this really what you're having a problem with? I can't for the life of me see how this has any practical impact on a GM's ability to function. He must merely do what GM's have always done. Come up with something and move on. Why is there an expectation that the PLAYERS should be able to understand something that their CHARACTERS by definition could never understand?

Because if it fails to give some intellectual meat to chew on, then it is NOT a rich religious experience at all, its a cardboard one in which you go through the motions without comprehension or sense of importance or significance.

contracycle wrote:

simon_hibbs wrote:
At a metagame level - because the game designer made it so. At an in-world level, because the world IS. I think therefore I am. Philosophers in the real world have struggled with this since at least the time of Xenophanese and still not even the most ingenious scientists and philosophers of our age can answer it. Does that make games set in the real world unplayable?

It certainly does for me, it renders the world valueless and uninteresting - because of the contradiction of certainty (action) and uncertainty (comprehension).

Valamir wrote:
There's the old theological question of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". What I'm hearing you say Gareth is that if the game does not provide a concrete answer to such questions, then the GM cannot possibly adjucate the game appropriate ("what if the PCs captured a bunch of angels and ordered them to dance on a pin...I need to know how many will actually fit")

simon_hibbs wrote:
Time to call it quits, I think. If you don't even consider games set in the real world, or trivial fictional variations of it, to be playable then you and I evidently don't have much in the way of common ground as to what constitutes a playable game.

Re contra's comment,

For real people, these problems were unsolvable until the development of the scientific method; but for the fictional people we are talking about in games, they have direct access through magic. Thus the contradiction - any game with magic empowers the people in that fictional world to ask real questions and get real answers. Either these have Absolute answers, or they have Relativistic answers; either tells you something about the underlying nature of the world.

At a metagame level - because the game designer made it so. At an in-world level, because the world IS. I think therefore I am. Philosophers in the real world have struggled with this since at least the time of Xenophanese and still not even the most ingenious scientists and philosophers of our age can answer it. Does that make games set in the real world unplayable?

contracycle wrote: My argment is, in summary: the world may or may not be relativistic in fact, but a GAME PRODUCT cannot be so, because to do so would be to decline to explain some of the rules of the game. A relatavistic game world IS ITSELF a rule that must be discussed prior to play; it does not in itself let you off the hook of describing what is True.

My argment is, in summary: the world may or may not be relativistic in fact, but a GAME PRODUCT cannot be so, because to do so would be to decline to explain some of the rules of the game. A relatavistic game world IS ITSELF a rule that must be discussed prior to play; it does not in itself let you off the hook of describing what is True.

jhgjhg

Valamir wrote: Take the X-Files. Muldar and Scully had only the vaguest notions that something was going on. We the audience didn't know any more than they did (although many hours were spent conjecturing).

So magic gives the players the ability to test the truth of the myth. What player with the right attitude would do that?

Think of it this way: Myth is real. Zeus really does strike down people with lightening bolts who displease him. He's a GOD. You find a magic item that allows you to fly. Are you REALLY going to fly up to the sun to see if its really Apollo in a chariot? In a world where women who dare to compare themselves to godesses get turned into spiders as punishment for their hubris are you REALLY going to test the gods?

... continued, because the system choked when I tried to post it all in one block...

My problem with the HW presentation is this; if I'm an Orlanthi warrior, I know that Orlanth exists because I can fly in the ceremonies every year. I know that, I've done it. But it is also quite possible that Lunar priest could come in and prove, absolutely, that Orlanth does not exist at all. Or, a malkioni could prove that only one god exists, full stop. What I'm not clear on is what this is supposed to mean to my character. It's been proven to me that only one god exists and that I have been deluded and worshipping devils in disguise - should I be worried? I'm not sure because apparently it will be unquestionably proven to me again that Orlanth exists in his own right as his own self at the next annual ritual.

If there were some appendix like "Proof: a theological model in HW" which explained to me exactly what they mean by proof, I might have some idea of what is meant to be going on, how I as a player am supposed to respond to this appearance of contradictory inputs to my character. At the moment there is none and so I experience something equivalent to the Idiot Block in linear fiction. This occurs when a writer refuses to let a main character make a connection that is obvious to the reader. The writer is delaying realisation on the characters part in order to stretch things out, but to the reader the character is in serious danger of coming across as a total idiot. The problem then is that the reader loses sympathy with the character because the character is so stupid; this is one way Not To Do It. To me, this is HW characters need to do all the time, becuase they are constantly faced with information that completely denies their most dearly held beliefs and yet not notice, somehow. Hence, I can't really sympathise with the character.

It's also not enough IMO to say that I simply don't understand the mythic frame of mind. That is obviously the case - I'm a dialectical materialist. The audience of any any product will be many and varied things. If you produce an RPG which is purported to be about the mythic mindset, or at least focussed on that subject, I think it is incumbent upon to you to explain this mythic mindset. This is after all a role playing game, and I'm buying it in order to play the role and have fun doing it. Denying me a vitally important factor in my ability to identify with the character by imposing the Idiot Block fatally undermines the game.

Various comments:
1)Even scientists don't know what is absolutely true. However it doesn't really matter. Scientificly, if we say X happens because of Y and we can take the implications of Y and predict other things that also occure, then Y is considered true, even though there could be a different mechanism, Z that just looks like Y in all the tests we have done so far. Hence, the scientific method.

For games, what I called the 'Uncertenity' solution is plausible. I.e. you try to fly to Sun, Zeus will zap you an't you won't make it, the magic required is impossible to get ect.

Some information charachters should just not attempt to find out. This is because a game is a game, and not as complex as reality. A greater problem would be, say a DnD characther leaves a castle and surprised by an arrow trap. The arrow hurts them enough to knock them unconcious.
The charachters goes out, has many, many adventures, comes back, is surprised by the same trap. This time they pull the arrow out of their thight and stick a bandade on it, wondering why the last time it went all the way through both legs.
Now you can do some handwavy stuff to cover these things but, but there are always things a player can do to expose the fact that a game isn't as detailed as RL.


Unfortunatly, I'm not as familiar with Hero Wars cosmology as I would like, but I'll give it a shot.
My characthers solution would be this:
1)Disproving Orlanth exists would entail disproving the fact that I fly every
year and the fact that he helps me in battle(or whatever). This would be almost impossible for someone to do. If a Lunar priest did, I would just assume that to them, Orlanth is demon, I could say the same thing to them, your god is a devil in disquise. It's just a name thing.

contracycle wrote: My problem with the HW presentation is this; if I'm an Orlanthi warrior, I know that Orlanth exists because I can fly in the ceremonies every year. I know that, I've done it. But it is also quite possible that Lunar priest could come in and prove, absolutely, that Orlanth does not exist at all. Or, a malkioni could prove that only one god exists, full stop. What I'm not clear on is what this is supposed to mean to my character. It's been proven to me that only one god exists and that I have been deluded and worshipping devils in disguise - should I be worried? I'm not sure because apparently it will be unquestionably proven to me again that Orlanth exists in his own right as his own self at the next annual ritual.

simon_hibbs wrote:
A Lunar priest would not prove that orlanth doesn't exist, because he knows orlanth exists.

he just doesn't believe that orlanth is moraly worthy of worship.

Likewise with a monotheist, the malkioni believe that the pantheistic 'gods' are merely juiced-up demons. Ultimately these are opinions.

Incidentaly there are true atheists in Glorantha - the Brithini and the men of God Forgot.

damion wrote:
For games, what I called the 'Uncertenity' solution is plausible. I.e. you try to fly to Sun, Zeus will zap you an't you won't make it, the magic required is impossible to get ect.

1)Disproving Orlanth exists would entail disproving the fact that I fly every
year and the fact that he helps me in battle(or whatever).

This would be almost impossible for someone to do. If a Lunar priest did, I would just assume that to them, Orlanth is demon, I could say the same thing to them, your god is a devil in disquise. It's just a name thing.

contracycle wrote:

he just doesn't believe that orlanth is moraly worthy of worship.

And I've warned about that before - moral worth does not enter into the discussion of what the world IS. Most theists could accept the existance of a god/power/entity that they do not worship; most christians claim satan exists absolutely but is not morally worthy of worship. The question is not about who or what these people consider MORALLY valid, but about how the world is built and operates.

Likewise with a monotheist, the malkioni believe that the pantheistic 'gods' are merely juiced-up demons. Ultimately these are opinions.

But if they are OPINIONS, then in why are they having game mechanical effects? And if they are only opinions, then the entire concept of proof is null and void.

Incidentaly there are true atheists in Glorantha - the Brithini and the men of God Forgot.

This again is a very interesting and very specialised use of a term which does not accord with its common parlance at all and which is in fact in total opposition to the conventional usage of this term. In Glorantha, in fact, the Atheists are in RW terms the only serious ideologues; most other people have an opportunistic flexibility of mystical consciousness (which is what I draw form the muddy state of Truth) based on what they observe and experience; whereas the Atheists maintain and explicitly counterfactual position arguing that the gods, despite their clear and present interventions, do not exist!

Hi there,

This is all very interesting, because in the main I agree with Gareth's points and yet am, like Simon, an ardent Hero Wars player/GM and fan of Glorantha as a game setting.

Thought I'd throw that in there to dispel the possibility of a dichotomized argument.

Best,
Ron

hmm . . . let me try a little line-by-line to see if I can make my thoughts here clear

contracycle wrote:

damion wrote:
For games, what I called the 'Uncertenity' solution is plausible. I.e. you try to fly to Sun, Zeus will zap you an't you won't make it, the magic required is impossible to get ect.

I'm happy with uncertainty up until it gets enshrined in a game mechanic. If the existance of god is uncertain, then how can mystic power which derives from god be certain?

contracycle wrote:

damion wrote:
1)Disproving Orlanth exists would entail disproving the fact that I fly every year and the fact that he helps me in battle(or whatever).

Oh no; you might be able to fly for some other reason that you merely think of as Orlanth. In principle.

contracycle wrote:

damion wrote:
This would be almost impossible for someone to do. If a Lunar priest did, I would just assume that to them, Orlanth is demon, I could say the same thing to them, your god is a devil in disquise. It's just a name thing.

Yes but what does that mean? Is a demon a "corrupted angel falling from heaven and damned eternally to live jeoulously alienated gods grace" or does it mean "the gods of my enemy"? There are massively distinct implications (and I well know that one is not Gloranthan) and so it is not just a name thing at all. Whether youyr god is a god in its own right or a demon in someone elses pantheon may well matter a great deal.

Greetings All,

Nice evening.

Sharpen your blades and dig in, this post is a long one.

Valamir wrote: In Greek Myth, the world was carried on Atlas's shoulders. When the hero hercules arrived he found that was indeed the case and actually carried the world himself for a time also. Bang the myth is proven. But wait. Who carried the world before Atlas. Why doesn't he get tired more often. What would have happened to the word if Hercules had hit him with a club and knocked him unconcious. How long could Hercules have continued to carry the world. If Hercules was strong enough to support the world why doesn't he appear that strong any other time. I mean he got beat in a discus throw by a kid for crying out loud.

Valamir wrote: So magic gives the players the ability to test the truth of the myth. What player with the right attitude would do that? Think of it this way: Myth is real. Zeus really does strike down people with lightening bolts who displease him. He's a GOD. You find a magic item that allows you to fly. Are you REALLY going to fly up to the sun to see if its really Apollo in a chariot? In a world where women who dare to compare themselves to godesses get turned into spiders as punishment for their hubris are you REALLY going to test the gods?

Gordon C. Landis wrote: And failure to get an answer doesn't NECCESSARILY mean that there isn't one. Unless you're saying that the Ultimate Truth is that we CAN'T know the Ultimate Truth - a viable choice, one that also doesn't require relativism, but again just one way to go.

contracycle wrote: But, DO they really? That is my question. I'm claiming that if you put in a myth that Zeus strikes people down with lightning, then this should be True, otherwise IMO the players will not buy into it. Or at least, I can't.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: When it comes to non-relative metaphysics vs. relativism, I can say that there IS no final answer in this game world - we don't know, the characters don't know, the designer doesn't know. We ARE off the hook for explaining what is True, if we want to be - we're not saying it IS relative (or not), we're saying you (we) don't know.

contracycle wrote: My argment is, in summary: the world may or may not be relativistic in fact, but a GAME PRODUCT cannot be so, because to do so would be to decline to explain some of the rules of the game. A relatavistic game world IS ITSELF a rule that must be discussed prior to play; it does not in itself let you off the hook of describing what is True.

I keep thinking that I should jump back into this thread that has managed to go three pages without me, and then not thinking of anything to say. I'm inspired to get in now,

because Ron wrote: in the main I agree with Gareth's points and yet am, like Simon, an ardent Hero Wars player/GM and fan of Glorantha as a game setting.

when he wrote: Do we *have* to know for sure what it derives from? Why?

There are plenty of things of uncertain derivation in every game world I"ve ever played in, and it's rarely a problem.

Hi again,

This is a bit long; sorry.

I think there’s a very fundamental disconnect going on here, in the sense that the reigning notion seems to be that the narrative content of myth constitutes the literal claim of a religious worldview. For example, the implication here is that because of the Greek myth of Atlas, the Greeks probably thought that the world was actually carried on his shoulders. Certainly this seems to be at stake in the issue of why the sun moves (dung ball or chariot).

Now I certainly accept that one can design one’s world such that mythology provides a convenient (and attractive) description of the universe. But that need not be true. Setting aside the question of what the actual ancient Greeks did or did not believe (an impossible and much-debated question), consider the number of modern Christians who do not believe in the literal truth of the Gospel story. For many of them, it is the meaning and idea of the teachings of Jesus that matter, not the particular details of (say) his casting demons out of people and into swine.

Kester gives us two takes on this:

Yes, it’s a morality tale. Once, maybe long long ago, it might have been much more. But as the stories exist (and they are *not* the original tales but the end result of a long story telling tradition) what we have are morality stories. Which is not to say there is nothing of history in them.

which is what the old myths probably were originally; our ancestors best attempt to explain things. To the best of their ability.

Howdy clehrich,


To preface my remarks be aware that all my preceding post have been made in a "reference to RPG/games" mode. This one... marginally so.

Ah, the rose does have so many thorns, best to stand under it.

clehrich wrote: Now I’m not singling Kester out negatively; he’s put things exceptionally clearly, is all. I happen to disagree deeply, however, with the latter description. Step back a moment: does it seem plausible that our ancestors really couldn’t think of anything more plausible to explain the motion of the sun than that some guy was driving a chariot across the sky? I think we have to presume that they derived some meaning from the story, of course, but it seems entirely possible that the meaning in question was not a literal explanation or description.

Howdy, Kester

Now, who wants me as a GM? Just one or two frustrating ciphers like that a game. And they'll mean something, within the context of the game, promise. *smirks*

Kester Pelagius wrote: Yes, I realize that is what you quoted and were responding to. But the key phrase is GAME PRODUCT. Real world philosophies, while perhaps good for source material, have no place in a game. A game is meant to be an entertainment, not a soap box platform to ram ideologicial truisms down peoples throat.

M. J. Young wrote: But if I'm the referee, I have to know whether there is a supreme deity, and who that is if there is one; or if there isn't one, what is the relationship between all these gods, and how do you determine what is really true?

What simon just said, mostly. Faith is a particular subcase that I'm not personally interested in using as an example, but essentially - if it's unprovable within the game world, no reason it has to be provable within the game system. And ultimate explanations rarely need to be provable - behavior needs to be well described, but "why" need not be. There have to be descriptions of the behavior of (e.g.) magic, but there is no NEED for ultimate explanations.

(Lapsing into personal/anecdotal mode - look, I've had this converstation with 3 different game groups over the course of 10+ years. We play fine without ultimate explanations (and fine with 'em, in some cases). There are two problems I've seen - one is that some people REALLY like to have ultimate explanations and play with things from there, and the other is the situation I mentioned before, where everything is building/pointing to a particular ultimate explanation and then the GM (or whoever) does something that's just wildly inconsistent with that established direction (in a way that feels wrong - I have seen sudden reversals about, say, the nature of the gods thaat feel right).

But I confess to a bit of frustration with people saying there HAS to be an explanation - we've gone without on many occasions. Some games/game designers (Talislanta, Glorantha - others?) go out of their way to say they WANT to be lacking in these kinds of explanations. They work. Not to everyone's taste, but . . . not everyone likes Traveller, either.)

Let's take demons in Sorcerer. What are they, REALLY? Do you need to establish what they are, REALLY, to play Sorcerer? No. You need to have rules for what they do in the world, how they interact with the PC's, but part of the point is that they are an UNKNOWN (in most Sorcerer descriptions I've seen - obviously, you could explain 'em if you want).

Any part of a game world can be seen that way. Taste will vary, and a game world where everything was like this (if Sorcerer didn't have a REAL - for the particular game - definition of Humanity) that might be "bad design." I've never seen such a game world (there's always something explained fully), but if folks are attacking that notion - OK, I'll agree. But I'm not buying the "must explain everything/everything basic" claims.

Another angle, so I can respond to Kester:

Sorry, Gordon, but that’s just not true. Especially not in something as complex as the environment of a role-playing game. By definition the rules of play *have* to govern the basic and essential questions of what is or is not possible within the context of a game

simon_hibbs wrote:

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Let us imagine two different fantasy worlds, Unitia and Freethinkia.
In Unitia there is a single obviously, and provably true religion which all rational beings must accept as the one true religion. Dissent is not possible, because the natural laws of the universe show that the religion is infalibly correct.
In Freethinkia, the full range of human philosophies exist, and it's cultures display a huge variety of modes of thought and cultural values. No one ideology can absolutely prove itself to the detriment of the others, indead individuals must decide for themselves what is important in their lives.
Which setting is ramming ideological truisms down people's throats, and which is offering the players (and their characters) the most freedom of expression?
Simon Hibbs

I don't think 'idealogical' truism must reduce the freedom of expression.
I can think of several reasons to have a game world like this, and there are most likely others. The most basic argument would be, that even if religion is a 'solved' problem, many other interesting things can happen.

1)One reason would be to make religious conflict a non-issue, which is fairly different from RL. Heck, imagine a world where you could understand any natural even by asking the correct priest, what would society be like? This could be very intersting from an exploration POV.

2)Also, you can still have conflicts, even if everyone agrees. Even if everyone knows Apollo moves the sun accross the sky, people could disagree on how the gods want them to behave, or you could have completely inane disagreements, like weathers Apollo's chariot has two horses or four....

I'm just saying I don't think idealogical truisms constrict a game designer at all and in fact, intersting things can be done.

damion wrote:

simon_hibbs wrote:
I don't think 'idealogical' truism must reduce the freedom of expression.
I can think of several reasons to have a game world like this, and there are most likely others.

For example?

The most basic argument would be, that even if religion is a 'solved' problem, many other interesting things can happen.

That's fair enough. I'm not arguing that all settings that do so are bad, I was meeting the challenge that doing so is necessery for a setting to be playable or interesting.


Simon Hibbs

Hi there,

Simon, you might be fighting a battle or two in a war that isn't occurring. Battle #1 is to defend Glorantha against all comers, which, I think isn't much of an issue. Ultimately, its quality as a game-world (even at the most basic philosophical level) is not controversial. Battle #2 is to "meet the challenge" that you mention in your most recent post. I think that is doomed to failure - disagreement in internet debates always skirts perilously close to issue-dodging by redefining the question. Therefore the best you can hope for is to be understood, and I think you've achieved that.

Over and over, Cehrlich has stated the fundamental issue: perceived meaning of "what is" is the issue, not whether "what is" really has meaning. As Gordon has observed as well, there isn't much light to be generated by expecting meaning of an imaginary world to illuminate real meaning, or its perception - especially not by citing "evidence" within the context of that imaginary world and its workings.

Let's consider as well this issue: what is the role of a GM relative to the game-world? Does its issues/metaphysics represent (1) something that he or she uniquely knows as a mechanism, in ways that players don't, or (2) something that should intrigue him or her on the same basis that it intrigues the players?

It seems to me that both sorts of approaches are viable in role-playing terms, but that differing views will prevent either approach's arguments to be satisfying to the other.

Best,
Ron

Greetings Simon,

No time like the present, now where'd I put my fork.

simon_hibbs wrote:

Kester Pelagius wrote: Yes, I realize that is what you quoted and were responding to. But the key phrase is GAME PRODUCT. Real world philosophies, while perhaps good for source material, have no place in a game. A game is meant to be an entertainment, not a soap box platform to ram ideologicial truisms down peoples throat.

Let us imagine two different fantasy worlds, Unitia and Freethinkia.

In Unitia there is a single obviously, and provably true religion which all rational beings must accept as the one true religion. Dissent is not possible, because the natural laws of the universe show that the religion is infalibly correct.

In Freethinkia, the full range of human philosophies exist, and it's cultures display a huge variety of modes of thought and cultural values. No one ideology can absolutely prove itself to the detriment of the others, indead individuals must decide for themselves what is important in their lives.

Which setting is ramming ideological truisms down people's throats, and which is offering the players (and their characters) the most freedom of expression?

Gordon C. Landis wrote: Another angle, so I can respond to Kester:

Sorry, Gordon, but that’s just not true. Especially not in something as complex as the environment of a role-playing game. By definition the rules of play *have* to govern the basic and essential questions of what is or is not possible within the context of a game

OK - my claim is that (e.g.) details about the FINAL, TRUE, and REAL source of various mystical powers are not basic and essential concepts. They can be, if you want them to be. And if you don't make them that way, you'll need to keep the issues around that decison in mind. But in the big, shared, imagined reality that is an RPG, a lack of ultimate explanation (managed appropriately) is (IME) actually often an asset. Rarely is it a liability - again, except for reasons of taste.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: Boiling it all down - how things work in the RPG world needs to be well described, I'll agree to that. Why they work that way, I'll STRONGLY claim, need only be described as personal taste dictates. Yes, why can have a big influence on how - and it's fun playing with why, in lots of different ways. Why often/always comes up as an issue. But it need not be dealt with head-on. "No one knows why." Those words can be your friend.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: MUCH longer than I thought - but as this thread progreses, I become more and more certain that we ARE talking about the exact issues I've gone round and round with various game groups on. And as a result of those rounds, I've formed a pretty strong opinion. Appologies if it comes across as TOO strong - I'm honestly mystified that folks would think there's an absolute need for an ultimate explanation of, say, MYTH in an RPG game world.

OK, a little more - while myth, Glorantha and the rest are fascinating things, the issue I've been meaning to tackle head-on is whether it is always a good idea to have a known-to(at least)-the-GM ultimate explanation behind (most) everything on in the game world. I don't think it is, always - e.g., if we explain what happens (at an entirely practical level) when the conflicting priests interact with their conflicting sun-images, that can be enough. Apollo's chariot looses a wheel, we have a drought. The dung beetle is fed the corpse of a Pharoh's son - all is normal again.

Kester's ley lines and vortices for mana . . . We know that if you cast a spell at a particular vortex, it has x effect mechanically in the game system. That's real - vortices have x effect. Why do they? Do we need to know? Why would we need to know?

MJ concentrated on a question just like this from an earlier post of mine - let me quote him a bit:

That, really, is the rub. The game creator can't answer every question. He hands the ball off to the game referee, who continues writing the background as it's needed. But the game creator has to explain to the referee what he's thinking, and in sufficient detail that the that the referee can pick up the task and continue in a way which is consistent with what already appears.

Gareth and I are not arguing that it can't be subjective; we're arguing that even if it is subjective, the reality has to be explained.

Gordon C. Landis wrote: What simon just said, mostly. Faith is a particular subcase that I'm not personally interested in using as an example, but essentially - if it's unprovable within the game world, no reason it has to be provable within the game system.

Let's take demons in Sorcerer. What are they, REALLY? Do you need to establish what they are, REALLY, to play Sorcerer? No.

Ultimately, its quality as a game-world (even at the most basic philosophical level) is not controversial.

Hi Guys,

You sure light up the internet with these discussions. There's just one problem:

Am I the only one who sees that this is absolutely an insoluble argument?

I mean, what we're really, really, really talking about here is the Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object. I'm referring to that old philosophical trick question, "What if the Unstoppable Force hits the Immovable Object?" It's a trick question; by definition if there is an "Unstoppable Force," it means that there is no such thing as an "Immovable Object." And vice versa. Taken as a thought experiment, the presence of one in the imagined universe rules out the existence of the other, therefore they do not meet, ever.

How does that apply here? Simple, if there's an "Unified Truth," then there cannot be valid "Diverse Religions." If there are valid "Diverse Religions," there cannot be a single "Unified Truth." Very simple, case closed.

This big hole was started back at the beginning of this thread. M. J. Young practically explained it right off:

When M. J. Young wrote: 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.... ...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 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.

Hey Fang,

Pick One is perfectly good advice. But my posting in this thread has been all about "Don't Pick One." Don't answer the Immoveable Object/Irresistable force question - it almost never comes up, and in fact CAN'T come up if the issue about whether either can even exist in the first place is established as unknowable. As Gareth says, don't let it be proveable in your game world, and you're cool.

Maybe I've got an irrational bias against this whole irreconcilable dualities thing, but really, I've found "don't pick one" the very best answer in Magic/Myth/Religion related gaming situations. Doesn't work for me in SciFi, though. Well - as applied to religon it does. Not to anything else.

Gordon, apparently Mr. "The only winning move is not to play" is this debate

Gordon C. Landis wrote: Pick One is perfectly good advice. But my posting in this thread has been all about "Don't Pick One." Don't answer the Immoveable Object/Irresistable Force question - it almost never comes up, and in fact CAN'T come up if the issue about whether either can even exist in the first place is established as unknowable. As Gareth says, don't let it be proveable in your game world, and you're cool.

Maybe I've got an irrational bias against this whole irreconcilable dualities thing, but really, I've found "don't pick one" the very best answer in Magic/Myth/Religion related gaming situations. Doesn't work for me in SciFi, though. Well - as applied to religon it does. Not to anything else.

Le Joueur wrote: Sorry, choosing 'not to choose' is picking one. Like I said, "talking about 'unknowable truths' [is an example] of handling the concept of having no valid 'Diverse Religions.'" The "Unified Truth" is that nobody can know. Any single solution is clearly a "Unified Truth."

Hi. (Warning --- LONG again!)

Ron started a new "challenge," if you will:

Let's consider as well this issue: what is the role of a GM relative to the game-world? Does its issues/metaphysics represent (1) something that he or she uniquely knows as a mechanism, in ways that players don't, or (2) something that should intrigue him or her on the same basis that it intrigues the players?

Gordon C. Landis wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: Sorry, choosing 'not to choose' is picking one. Like I said, "talking about 'unknowable truths' [is an example] of handling the concept of having no valid 'Diverse Religions.'" The "Unified Truth" is that nobody can know. Any single solution is clearly an "Unified Truth."

Hmm . . . I think it's time (for me, anyway) to just let this one go. I disagree very strongly that Not Picking in any way means, by necessity, there are no valid Diverse Religions, at least in terms of RPG play (I'm really trying NOT to pull too much real world philosophy in here). Not Picking between your two choices is, of course, a choice, and no one can stop you from insisting that as such it MUST fit into one of your categories.

But (again, RPG play is all I'm applying this to here) my experience is that making the "Don't Pick One" choice is entirely different than making the Unified Truth Choice,

Gordon C. Landis wrote: making the "Don't Pick One" choice is entirely different than making the Unified Truth choice, and very different from the Valid Diverse Religions choice. And often results in better (for me) play - easier to manage, more rewarding.

1 points/ 1 question.
1)An RPG has a unified truth, as it has a system. Thus, anything in the 'system' is a fact.

2)Ron's question bears repeating, which is : How much of the world does the GM have to know for the game to be playable?
Obviously, every question that can be asked in the game has to have an answer, even if it is 'you don't know'.
As Fang mentioned, sometimes they GM may have to extend the system, this is ok because:
If we assume a 'finished' system(i.e. people play it, ect), then this extention is not that important, i.e. that fact that this info isn't in th system doesn't affect peoples ability to play it.. Now the GM's extention could be important, depending on what it is, but taking care when doing this can solve the problem.

The only important thing is enought truth exist to resolve things.
I'd agree with Fang that the real question is how to dignify one or the other. Of course, there is the additional problem that to dignify multiple diverse religions, they can't contradict each other. (I.e. you can't have multiple religions that say 'our God is the only one', and they all have similard definitions of God).
If there is one, unified true, the answere is simple. The religion replaces
'physical reality' in the game world in the apropriate places.
For multiple diverse religions the solutions I see are:
1)All relgions ackoledge the others, to a degree. Thus the differences between them may be in interpreation or ritual, rather than truth. Alll share a common frame of truth though. Example:Chritianity.

2)They don't overlap. I.e. each valid religion is completely seperate, and
doesn't prevent the existance of others. DnD works in this way.


3)Each religion only tries to explain a 'part' of reality. This is similart to #2, but instead of having multiple overlapping explanations, each explains a part of the whole and ignores the rest.

Just some ideas.

This is a response to MJ's initial post, and a continuation of my own interest in the subject, specifically regarding the following idea:

1) An imaginary game world.
2) This world maintains a mythic reality.
3) This world has numerous, sometimes conflicting, myths.
4) All these myths are none-the-less true.

It is ideas #3 and #4, in conjunction, which are bothersome to Gareth and MJ in their role as the referee of any particular game.

Thus far, a number of individuals have completely missed the point of the discussion, instead bringing up real-world metaphysical theory, faith of the believer, moral validity and so forth. But most of this has ignored #4, that the myths are true and real in an actual, physical, empirical sense.

While Gareth has maintained that this causes problems if myths are also subjective, MJ has finally given me what I'm looking for: a feasible and simple situation where two mutually exclusive subjective-but-true truths are tested. The event given appears irreconcilable: one of the myths must necessarily be false.

Let us, however, look at idea #2. The idea of a mythic reality.

A mythic reality, by nature, is vaguely inconsistent; it changes to suit the whim and necessity of the storyteller without necessarily becoming internally inconsistent.

An example of a mythic reality are the various Star Trek television series: the base setting for each series (ie: Voyager, Next Generation, etc) is always the same from episode to episode within that particular series, sometimes new facts are added to this base.

More often the solution or discovery of the week is forgotten in the weeks to follow, and rarely is it followed to its logical conclusion unless the series base is due a major change or addition. It is left such because the story the solution was an essential element of has already been told, and thus the element is no longer important.

In contrast to this, Gareth and MJ are talking about creating an objective, experienced reality -- a secondary world that functions exactly as does ours, which changes, grows and alters based on the forces of real-world history and invention, instead of the more television-like world of Star Trek and its necessities, which need only maintain its base and can discard everything else.

The world exists as a base set of principles in a specific time-snapshot that does not change, despite having the illusion of doing so during a story and from week-to-week for the viewer.

This might be called "stagnating," if you will, as the world can be left intact, as-is, throughout the series if the writers so wish, without invention or history altering anything about the show's base (such a method is very prominent in the original Star Trek series).

However, this is not actual stagnation, because its purpose is not to exist as a reality in its own right, but a stage upon which plays and stories are told.

Obviously, this is not our world.

Likewise, a mythic reality need only maintain its own base, perhaps adding small parts to that base episode-to-episode, but remaining otherwise unchanged by "prior" events.

Once the base is known, the rest of the series can be enjoyably experienced out-of-sequence, as a one-time experience, or in bits and pieces without the loss of comprehension of the specific episode(s) being viewed.

In much the same way, a mythic reality's physical nature is non-real. Distance and time are malleable, as is location, and even state-of-being. Many modern authors, particularly RE Howard and the early Michael Moorcock, use this method to write their stories.

In this fashion, one answer to the problem posed by MJ in regards to the issue of the reality of the myths of Apollo and Ra is thus:

Consider that the world does not exist independent of the authors (the play group) and has no life or necessary existance outside of the premises and stories the authors are using it to tell.

I believe this is a GNS issue, in that MJ and Gareth are approaching the idea of a game world from a mindset of having another physical place to explore or experience, one where it is important to know the facts ahead of time.

But let us approach it from a different angle, one not so rooted in traditional methods and structures of campaign worlds. I'm taking my cue from Sorcerer, here, which used the same paradigm in its overall design philosophy: the elements are not important until the authors give them meaning.

The facts are developed in play. The world itself and ultimate reality doesn't matter, the ultimate truths derived from it are illusory. Only the characters exist, only what they do matters, only what they believe matters...or simply, story first. The protagonists are not reactions to the world, but the moving forces in it, the world exists for the protagonists, solely for the story being told.

So your players, containing among them a priest of Ra and a priest of Apollo, want to decide once and for all between the two of them which myth is true. In this manner, the premise is established and play begins.

Here, we are developing a myth, or examining a myth, as the narrative structure in which all other things take place. That is, the myth itself serves as the premise, including a contested myth.

The authors may have decided beforehand who is right, establishing the premises: How far will you go to prove you are right? and What would you do if you found everything you believed was false?

Or they may allow the correct answer to be arrived at in play, via some previously established method: who goes the furthest, who survives the journey, etc.

The reason none have before attempted this sort of contest is because of the nature of the characters as protagonists -- the world only exists to create their story. This is both adequate and probable considering the nature of adventure gaming, and particularly myth: none have done it before, even if it seems easy, because the story is not about the world, but about the characters.

To continue from this, we have found the priests have gone to the heavens, experienced what they experienced, and both return to the earthly plane -- one having been right, one having been wrong.

Yet the initial question remains unanswered for the populace at large...except for that individual.

The forsaken priest returns to his village, bereft of his faith only to find that his people still worship his people's chosen god despite the issue now being decided. He attempts to convert the populace by telling them of his experience...the populous simply does not believe him and continue to believe precisely what they have always believed.

A brother to this priest confronts his clerical opposite and travels with him to the heavens, discovering that his brother is wrong, that his conversion attempts are based on false notions.

In this case, if the attempt is merely to visit as it is above, not interfere, then fewer difficulties are created for the gamemaster. However, if the players do interfere with the mythic order they discover, the gamemaster must determine if the natural order is affected.

Think in terms of the mythic reality of the situation, and of the story itself -- of what importance is the answer to the characters and the players? Of what importance is the answer to the premise?

Thus cease thinking of the world as a planet, or even as a world, with defined physical characteristics and locations and realities. There is one sun. No, there is no sun. There are the myths of Apollo and Ra.

You do not attach the myths to an object that can be tested, but make the myths themselves the objects. The problem with Gareth and MJ's interpretation of the problem is that they are thinking in terms of physical objects rather than myths. They are positing travel to the heavens to an object called "the sun" -- whether a ball of gas or a flaming chariot, or something else entirely.

Consider that the metaphysical plane, in this case, reality itself, is large enough that both facts are true. There is no sun, there is either Apollo's Chariot or Ra's dung-beetle. Or rather, it is not either but both.

The question then becomes how to handle such a world. If Apollo's chariot is stolen, how does this affect the sun across the rest of the world?

Stealing Apollo's chariot brings the sun down over the whole world, though it is only a local myth; or perhaps it only brings the sun down in specific areas, wherever Apollo's influence is important; or instead, the theft and darkness only affects the characters of the story itself and we ignore the rest of the world until it becomes important that the event have affected it -- that is, how does the event matter to the story, to the premise and the characters/players?

Further, you haven't affected the sun at all, you've affected the myth. Apollo's chariot is gone (and hence the sun is gone). The sun is gone, but should you visit Ra, you find nothing has happened to the sun, in the mythic reality of Ra...or perhaps you find something has happened to the sun, but the explanation is not that Apollo's chariot was stolen.

You see, the objects are illusory, and only relevant to play when play is relevant to them.

Suppose each priest journeying to the sun sees precisely what they expect. One steals Apollo's chariot to prove that the sun is in Apollo's domain, the other does not interfere with Ra or his dung-beetle.

Yet darkness falls across the land...and Ra speaks to his people of the serpent who has swallowed the sun, whom the authors and writers (players) can then go slay, returning the sun to its glory even while retaining Apollo's chariot.
In this manner, myth is made.

It is inconsistent, episodic, malleable.

Post Deleted by Author to start a new, shiny thread.

No geryorm, "mythic reality" is not enough.

If you say there is no causality, the only purpose of the world is to be as if a stage, then what is the conflict? This is game world as held in the mind of the game designer; a game world whose identity is examined AS a game world. But then, none of the conlficts in it can be any more important than the conflict between tokens, or pawns.

If its all "aubjective" and happening only to the characters, thebn I sitting around in one room, playing a game about being a character sitting around in another room, imagining themselves to be doing heroic and magical things.

Here, we are developing a myth, or examining a myth, as the narrative structure in which all other things take place. That is, the myth itself serves as the premise, including a contested myth.

Yet the initial question remains unanswered for the populace at large...except for that individual.

Stealing Apollo's chariot brings the sun down over the whole world, though it is only a local myth; or perhaps it only brings the sun down in specific areas, wherever Apollo's influence is important; or instead, the theft and darkness only affects the characters of the story itself and we ignore the rest of the world until it becomes important that the event have affected it -- that is, how does the event matter to the story, to the premise and the characters/players?

Suppose each priest journeying to the sun sees precisely what they expect. One steals Apollo's chariot to prove that the sun is in Apollo's domain, the other does not interfere with Ra or his dung-beetle.

Yet darkness falls across the land...and Ra speaks to his people of the serpent who has swallowed the sun, whom the authors and writers (players) can then go slay, returning the sun to its glory even while retaining Apollo's chariot.

Greetings Damion,

My shortest post ever?

damion wrote: 1 points/ 1 question.
1)An RPG has a unified truth, as it has a system. Thus, anything in the 'system' is a fact.

2)Ron's question bears repeating, which is : How much of the world does the GM have to know for the game to be playable?

...

The only important thing is enought truth exist to resolve things.

Greetings greyorm,

Methodist?

greyorm wrote: So your players, containing among them a priest of Ra and a priest of Apollo, want to decide once and for all between the two of them which myth is true. In this manner, the premise is established and play begins.

Here, we are developing a myth, or examining a myth, as the narrative structure in which all other things take place. That is, the myth itself serves as the premise, including a contested myth.

The authors may have decided beforehand who is right, establishing the premises: How far will you go to prove you are right? and What would you do if you found everything you believed was false?

Or they may allow the correct answer to be arrived at in play, via some previously established method: who goes the furthest, who survives the journey, etc.

The reason none have before attempted this sort of contest is because of the nature of the characters as protagonists -- the world only exists to create their story. This is both adequate and probable considering the nature of adventure gaming, and particularly myth: none have done it before, even if it seems easy, because the story is not about the world, but about the characters.

Greetings contracycle,

Hmm...

contracycle wrote:

Yet darkness falls across the land...and Ra speaks to his people of the serpent who has swallowed the sun, whom the authors and writers (players) can then go slay, returning the sun to its glory even while retaining Apollo's chariot.

Why? These are two different realities - please explain how you reconcile them. I will say again, sometiems I think that this is really just the anthropological model. The Truth is that there was an eclipse, and there are two conflicting lies explaining it. In both cases, the local priests make up some further lies, and the problem goes away. Conclusion? Both mythologoes are lies and useless for making decisions about the game world. In neither case it is Actually True, in any sense whatsoever, that either myth correctly describes the world.

If you structure such play, you will not make myths; quite the converse, the only thing you will make them is irrelevant. There will be no point in mknowing them; mythiology is not Information and has no usefgul function. While this may be a valid model of a game, I would find it a waste of time to construct such a system that used so much mythological colour and then DIDN'T make the mythology actually true.

Just to clarify my possition, I'd like to reply to a few comments
on the Freethinkia/Unitia examples, where it seems to me I may
not have been very well understood.


damion :

>I don't think 'idealogical' truism must reduce the freedom
>of expression.

I am not arguing that it necesserily does, I am challenging the
assertion that _not_ having ideological truism reduces freedom
of expression. I don't think it does. I can't see how enabling multiple
valid religious philosophies in a game reduces freedom, hence my
attempt at a 'reductio ad absurdum' example.


Kester Pelagius :

>This is a fallacious argument.

No it isn't. You are ignoring the issue of provability, which is at the
crux of this discussion.

>Why?
>
>Because what you have posited are world cultures. Within
>the world cultures both would provide the players with a full
>range of playability.

That is _exactly_ how I see it. Note that the culture of
Unitia could perfectly well exist in Freethinkia, with the
caveat that it's religious philosophy would not be provably
the only valid one. I am simply arguing that such provability
is not necessery or desirable.

Why don't we split off a sub-thread, starting with Ron's
question about the role of the GM relative to the game world? It
seems like a god question.


Simon Hibbs

I can't see how enabling multiple
valid religious philosophies in a game reduces freedom,

This specific question has been bugging me a lot lately. It strikes me, in a way, like when someone posts "Give me an idea for an RPG" which I equate to "Think of something for me to invent."

We have an interesting problem, mutually exclusive mythologies which are to be equally true in the described game. Now, the problem that some people seem to have is that you cannot have this because the difernt religious views cannot be explicitly true or else there will be reprocussions through the game world that makes the one myth more true(?) than the others.

My gut instinct is to ask "reprocussion like what?" not really understanding what is being worried about here and then we get bogged down into the details of the hypethetical and forget about the main point here.

The main point here, it seems to me, is we have an interesting problem before the table, reconciling conflicting religious/mythological views in the same game world, but it is the task of individual games and players to answer this question, not any thread on an RPG theory forum. This problem has too many possible solutions to really discuss here or to ever hope to arrive at an answer. There is no one true way.

Let take the Apollo/dung beetle example again for a moment. These are two very different possible realities. How can you reconcil them?


• You could have only one be true. Either Apollo drives the sun or he does not.
• You could have neither be true, like in the real world where Great and Mighty Oogok throws his solar frisbee across the sky.
• or you could find a way for both to be true


We seem to be talking about the last option here for the most part and how to do it. Well, that's your problem if you're running such a game, I'm afraid. RPGs are a form of artistic expression and if you wish to make conflicting mythologies real at the same time, then that is the problem that you have decided to tackle. How you solve it is a matter of your own talent, artistry, and taste and it will not be solved here.

Now, we could give you possible solutions and suggestions and whether you like them or not is, again, a matter of taste. For instance, you could have Apollo and the dung beetles "shooting for it" to see who has to take the sun across the sky.

Apollo: "...and shoot! Evens! Ha ha, beetle! You have to take the sun across the sky today!"

Beetle: "Crrkt Crrkt Crrkt"

Apollo: "No grumbling. It was fair and square. You want to use my chariot?"

Beetle: "Crrkt Cree Crrkt"

Apollo: "Suit yourself."

Don't like that one? Then you could borrow a page from the movie Erik the Viking where the vikings went to Valhalla and the Christian in their group could not see it. He did not believe in Valhalla or the Norse gods so they weren't there to him or real at all. He could walk right through the walls he couldn't see and the gods could not harm him. However, the walls of Valhalla and the gods were very real to Erik and the rest and very real danger to them.

Or come up with something different, if you like. Or only play games where these things are addressed to your liking. Either or. My point is that it really isn't within the scope on this forum to answer this question and is more up to individual designers and player to do so within individual games, perhaps answering the same question differently in different games or not at all. Just my view of it.

Jack,

Yes.

And in the telling of the tale, in defining mythological reality on the fly, the players and GM state in narrative what they think the world to be like, what matters, and even, on occassion, find themself contradicting what they might have thought before play, having entered imaginitively into a tale and discovered a new "treasure" to bring out into the real world having participated in the story's creation.

Christopher

The Truth is that there was an eclipse, and there are two conflicting lies explaining it. In both cases, the local priests make up some further lies, and the problem goes away. Conclusion? Both mythologoes are lies and useless for making decisions about the game world. In neither case it is Actually True, in any sense whatsoever, that either myth correctly describes the world.

edit: post (response to Gareth) moved to private message

contracycle wrote:

I can't see how enabling multiple
valid religious philosophies in a game reduces freedom,

...because their "validities" are mutually exclusive;

they are all equally invalid, and therefore nobody is free to express themselves on the given framework.

simon_hibbs wrote:

contracycle wrote:

I can't see how enabling multiple
valid religious philosophies in a game reduces freedom,

...because their "validities" are mutually exclusive;

You still haven't demonstrated this, only asserted it.

I didn't need to demonstrate it, greyorm demonstrated it for me. We would present a scenario in which myth was to be taken as Literally True, but in actual resolution, the GM-behaviour was to declare it symbolic. Thus, a character identity premised on the mythology being true had been violated; that character cannot carry out what they were selected by the player to carry out. The myth has been falsified in actual play at the table. That has appeared in every sample to date.

How on earth you can accept that a fantasy world might have 'The Law of Similarity' as a cosmic law, and yet deny that similarities inmythical alegory with the real world can give power? This seems to me to be elementary.

I don't; I merely require that the game ASSERT that the Law of Similarity IS a cosmic law and is empowered in manner X. A game which does not make such an assertion gives me no reason to think that Law of Similarity either exists in the game world or is empowered in the game world.

The Law of Similarity per se does not explain effect. It merely explains, more or less, why human beings FALSELY attribute cause and effect to things that are only superficially similar. It is an argument to anthropology, not an argument to game design.

contracycle wrote:

simon_hibbs wrote:
I can't see how enabling multiple
valid religious philosophies in a game reduces freedom,

...because their "validities" are mutually exclusive;

You still haven't demonstrated this, only asserted it.;

I didn't need to demonstrate it, greyorm demonstrated it for me. We would present a scenario in which myth was to be taken as Literally True, but in actual resolution, the GM-behaviour was to declare it symbolic.

Thus, a character identity premised on the mythology being true had been violated; that character cannot carry out what they were selected by the player to carry out.

The myth has been falsified in actual play at the table. That has appeared in every sample to date.

How on earth you can accept that a fantasy world might have 'The Law of Similarity' as a cosmic law, and yet deny that similarities inmythical alegory with the real world can give power? This seems to me to be elementary.

I don't; I merely require that the game ASSERT that the Law of Similarity IS a cosmic law and is empowered in manner X. A game which does not make such an assertion gives me no reason to think that Law of Similarity either exists in the game world or is empowered in the game world.

The Law of Similarity per se does not explain effect. It merely explains, more or less, why human beings FALSELY attribute cause and effect to things that are only superficially similar. It is an argument to anthropology, not an argument to game design.

So your argument is to ignore what the GM and game designer have said about the nature of the world, and assert yourselves how it has to work according to your own rules, then use that in your proof?

Are we talking baout the beliefs of a character in the game world, or your assertions about what can't be true in my game world?

Not in mine. You have refused to debate the example of a game world in which I have determined (as game designer) the way the world works, instead asserting that it _has_ to work the way you say. Why?

Falsely perhaps in our world (that's a seperate issue), but not necesserily falsely in a fantasy world where the game designer states that it is the case, or more generaly that the laws of magic accepted by magicians and religious philosophers in the real world operate. Again, you refuse to allow me as game designer to choose the operating principles of my game world, and refuse to consider situations in that game world based on those principles. Why?

Simon wrote: The issue is if is possible to have multiple religions in a game world that are contradictory yet equaly true.

wfreitag wrote: I should also point out that in a sufficiently magic-rich world, just about everything becomes unfalsifiable. Yes, magic allows more tests to be made (such as flying into the sky to examine the vault of the sky for hoofprints or dung beetle tracks) but it also provides alternative unfalsifiable explanations for anything that is perceived.

contracycle wrote:

So your argument is to ignore what the GM and game designer have said about the nature of the world, and assert yourselves how it has to work according to your own rules, then use that in your proof?

Eh? The game designer said, "in this game, mythology is true". That is the topic for discussion, I understand, true mythologies.

Are we talking about the beliefs of a character in the game world, or your assertions about what can't be true in my game world?

The character is a vehicle for the player; character beliefs are a large part of the data that the player will be processing to solve problems, take actions etc. Therefore, character beliefs feed back to player action. It is the player I have to persuade, not the character - but if the characters beliefs are prima facie insane, then players have a tough job identifying with characters.

simon_hibbs wrote:
But you will only accept your own definition of true, i.e. physicaly true however you have already accepted yourself that this is not necessery when you accepted the validity of the Law of Similarity.

Who said anything about insane characters? In the real world people of different religions are capable of accepting the validity of each other´s beliefs.

Therefore I don´t see what´s so crazy about positing a fantasy world in which that is also true. However asserting that more than one belief can be true, according to the cosmic laws of that universe, doesn´t mean that all beliefs must be true. If they don´t comply with our chosen cosmic laws for that universe (in this case ther Law of Similarity), then of course they´re not true.