>Well, I as a person don't go and do something to gain insight about my
>personality unless I go see a therapist.
Excuse me if I am ignorant of the therapist culture (so often depicted in "typical views of American life", like Woody Allen movies), but why the Hellcrack would anyone go to a therapist when he or she can _experience_ or insight through a fun action?
Don't you ever face your players with a moral dilemma, and let them fail to sort it out? Make them decide which "lesser evil" to choose? That's a lot what the HeroQuesting mechanics John has been describing are about. HQing is _not_ restricted to super-RQ, it needn't include any of it. (It can - Harrek or Argrath type questing tends to, some Lunar stuff as well. Other Lunar T&Jing is quite removed from any skill use.)
>I'm sure that a PC in the game also
>doesn't go on an HQ to have some cathartic experience or gain some insight
>into his own personality. A hero goes on an HQ to get something (for himself
>or his people) or to find out something (like who is Yelmalio?). A hero does
>not go on an HQ to find out that the reason he can't trust women is because
>he hated his mother.
Yeah. You did read Campbell, sure (I'm currently at my first run, and fail to be inspired or impressed by that part), and bought into the Freudian mistake as well. Your problem. Maybe even worth a session or two, if you want to do something about it. (Sorry... :)
HQing _is_ about personal experiences shared with others. Myth is. The power of myth is that it resonates with some strings deep within you. When that resonance is absent, the myth doesn't mean much. This is why some "Mythos and History" sections of cult write-ups maybe describe the mythic actions, but fail to evoke anything but "gee, what a cool way to power" reaction.
Your example about "Who is Yelmalio" is a good one: every Yelmalian/Elmali should go on this quest, and find his personal answer. Which may be a part of a cosmic truth, possibly even a single one. However, a quest yielding a lexicalic definition of "the god-plane entity falsely appelled as Yelmalio by unwitting savages" probably fails to register as a heroquest, unless you are a God Learner and do this as part of your personal quest to depersonalize all the myths, in order to construct something with them or raid something out of them. Not even the Loskalmi forays into the semi-reality beyond the mystical guardian take away the personal experience from their quests. (Which are the only reason why I think that Loskalm stands a chance to keep the KoW at bay for as long as it takes Argrath to go on his LBQ, the Loskalmi wizard-knight-questers can use the resource of men's dreams which the KoW has cut itself from, thus they can defy the harsh and brutal reality of the KoW with romantic and dreamlike stunts.)
>Introspection and overcoming of prejudice may come as a result of
>heroquesting but it is not the object of the heroquest.
Understanding of any power is the object of a heroquest. More often than not the "power" gained in the quest is the knowledge about the weakness of the enemy, and a token to use this weakness against the enemy. If the enemy's power consists of knowledge about the quester's weakness, then introspection is the reward. Add some flashy piece of armour or heroic ability or whatever you want to visualize this, it's like a battle magic focus in RQ2. Useful to have, but not really mandatory.
>It sounds like that Mr. Hughes would like the idea of having several couches
>at the place where we would play HeroQuest. That way we could all lie down
>and psychoanalyze each other and cure ourselves of problems like prejudices
>both in the game and in our RW lives.
You seem to be prejudiced that problems have to be solved in therapy...
As you have said, you won't play heroquests for personal insights. Fine. Those won't (can't) be in the rules anyway. They can't be in published scenarios either, although some of the "problems" can be.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #140
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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