No Subject

From: Bernuetz, Oliver: WPG <Bernuetz.Oliver_at_cbsc.ic.gc.ca>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 17:12:21 -0400


Martin Laurie in response to Eric Schmidt's statement that "In a fantasy game, the gods are real."

replied:

>This is a somewhat limited view and one supplied copiously by
>TSR so why bother with Glorantha if you want things to be so cut
>and dry - one of the great things about Glorantha is its depth
>and such depth comes from a real attempt to make the world
>consistent and realistic within its own context. As human beings
>are involved this means much RW activity will be mirrored in
>Glorantha with some differences but largely the same.

Why is this a limited view? A lot of the arguments from the subjectivist camp seems to be based on the premise that an individual's experience of the divine in the RW is genuine or else that it doesn't matter-i.e. that people belief in god(s) etc. in the RW is sufficient in and of itself. Well what if you think that the people in the RW who believe in magic and the divine are mistaken? This leads you to believe (there's that word again) that the situation in a world with real deities and magic would be different, in fact would have to be different. This notion that everyone's right and nobodies wrong smacks of humanism not theism.

Erich said:

>I don't want to run a game in the real world with a little magic =
>added either. =

Martin replied:

>Thats the whole point, its not the real world, its Glorantha which
>has a wealth of myth, legend and magic but I like my worlds
>to function within their idiom with realism and consistency. The
>Gods are Real argument is unable to supply that consistency
>given what we know of historical patterns, myth and human =
>behaviour in the RW.

Again the argument rests on the belief that RW analogies would be accurate in a fantasy world. It's very dangerous to rely too heavily on analogies as any anthropologist can tell you. Real fantasy results from an examination of a world that is truly different from that which we know.

Martin's response to Erich's desire for a "crisp underlying structure":.

>Why do you need to find an underlying structure to it all? Who cares?
>It certainly doesn't affect game play or the interaction of the PCs/NPCs
>or it doesn't in any game I run or play in.

This argument is getting pretty damn boring. It's pretty obvious that some of us care or we wouldn't defend the point so often. Sure, it has no effect on PC/NPC interaction but it could have an effect on game play as far as we're concerned. Sure the Praxian's beliefs are subjective out the whazoo but there's something under there that's real. If two cultures are clashing or someone's investigating their cultural beliefs (not that I think the latter would happen too often) it's nice to know the basis
of their belief. Just saying well that's what they believe doesn't cut it with me and others I suspect. I can live with mostly subjective gods who can be experienced differently by different people but I refuse to live with subjective history and entirely subjective beliefs.

I really dislike this idea that myth is so mutable that it can easily be changed to suit changes in circumstance or situation. (Though I suspect that actual "recorded" instances of myths being changed are rarer than most people think). I also think that culture wide instances

of HQ'd changes are a hell of a lot rarer than some people would lead us to believe.

Oliver D. Bernuetz
bernuetz.oliver_at_cbsc.ic.gc.ca


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