ummm.... I think there a very skewed perception here. Those of us who like the new, postmodern, complex cosmology (Godmakers is as good a name as any) include quite a few people with significant interests in the rules as well. David Dunham, for example, responsible for many funny names for gods in foreign parts, has put in a lot of effort on Pendragon Pass. I was certainly one of of, if not the most, active contributors to the rq-rules digest when the rq4 stuff was under active discussion, and yet I also did the Pelorian Prosopaedia, filled with oodles of funny new new gods culled from GRoY and Entekosiad.
And furthermore, Martin Laurie, the chap who published the Onslaught stats, is not only currently the monomyths most enthusiastic burner, but it must be remembered that the outrage about Onslaughts stats came not as a reaction against stats in general, but as a reaction by active players that they should be so high. In other words, Onslaughts stats were controversial not because it interrupted our reverential contemplation of the manifold sun gods, but because people who actively played and knew the rules well thought they were, ahem, a little over the top. Wether they were or not, though, they certainly weren't found objectionable because of some bizarre anti-rules jihad.
>What upsets me, is that much of new work contradicts or invalidates what
>could >be called the old testament (Cults of Prax, the Monomyth in
>general).
What people tend to forget is that back in the old RQ2 days, there was simply almost no info on Peloria or Fronela at all. We had very vague ideas about what it might be like.
Now, the monomyth, cults of Prax stuff is still very much true if you happen to be running a campaign in Prax. Its mostly true in Sartar (leaving aside that troublesome Elmal). And in RQ2 days, if you ran a campaign anywhere else, you were making it up yourself.
All this new stuff about Peloria - the amount of RQ2 stuff that it really directly conflicts with is probably a few paragraphs, and a pile of speculation. OK, so RQ2 didn't say that the Pelorians believed different stuff. But it also didn't give you enough info to play Pelorians anyway...
back to the monomyth itself, rather than its right to exist
>Unless we're consigning Joseph Campbell to a death below the waves of
>the Homeward Ocean, I feel that we can never wholly discount the
>monomyth.
Joseph Campbells monomyth is not the same as the Jrusteli monomyth, at least in common useage (though its probably were Greg got the terminology). JC uses the term primarily to refer to an overall pattern of heroquesting - which as the heroplanes existence is doubted by neither side in the monomyth debate AFAIK, most of JCs monomyth remains intact regardless of either side. JC most definately believes in varying perceptions of the divine.
Cheers
David
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