Nick in a pleasant manner puts forward that if we had an objective framework then we would find that we didn't want it anymore as it would remove a considerable amount of the fun and mystery of the world of Glorantha.
Martin Laurie in a far less pleasant manner can't understand why other people would possibly want to have any sort of objective underpinning to the world of Glorantha.
On the first, I have to agree with Nick that to have Greg come out and explain everything in Glorantha and say that this is what actually happens and Arkat was the good guy and Nysalor the bad guy and the Lunars have got it all wrong etc etc would probably spell the end of my interest in the World and reduce it to Forgotten Realms affair. I'm quite happy for the Secret of the God Learners to be shrouded in mystery forever and never know it, as the half-formed fears and musings I have about it are probably far more enjoyable than the actual secret, no matter how amazing it is.
On the second, the reason i want some objectivity in the world is I guess due to the canonical campaign that is played in Glorantha. Which I see as a bunch of adventurers from many different backgrounds in the city of Pavis. Here we straight away run into at least 5 common different worldviews:
This doesn't count the troll, elves and chaos groups in the city who all have different world views.
Now if we are playing something like the Taming of Dragon Pass, or a solely Troll campaign or the Shargashi campaign set in Alkoth, we really have no need for any objective basis for our myth as the myth of the dominant culture is the only one we need consider.
In our canonical campaign however, given the move to directly incorporate myth into our campaigns, I believe that we need to come up with some gamable (and hence to some extent objective) method of resolving the differences and clashes between myths.
If a campaign is set at a low magic level and the myths don't come into it then this is not necessary, but I think that the addition of mythical elements makes roleplaying in Glorantha heaps more fun, and this is where I think the desire for some objectivity arises from.
Now this could be simply a war of propaganda, the culture with the most worshippers wins the day, but to me that doesn't hold a great deal of fun or resonance. In a purely subjective campaign perhaps it's the depth and strength of your beliefs rather than the number of worshippers which determines who wins.
And here I come to Nick's point that it is action that determines the winners and i agree with him, but in Glorantha you can't separate action from myth, in fact Heroquesting is Action via Myth, so just as we need rules for combat and war, we need a system to handle war between myths.
Of course this is Heroquest, but all the HQ systems i've seen so far, seem to be focused too much on individuals and not on the myths themselves and how myths can be used and/or changed. To my mind, this will require some objectification of how myths work in Glorantha, if we want to game there, if we just want to read and talk about it (something I'm very happy to do) then there is no need for any objectivity at all.
To Martin Laurie
On a related note, why do you think that objectively real gods (i.e with free will and intelligence) are inherently bad and must end up like the Forgotten Realms. If you look at the greek myths, the gods are pretty much real people writ large and I think that it is a vibrant, fascinating mythos with much to recommend to it in roleplaying terms. I'm not saying that Glorantha should necessarily have these sort of gods, but to dismiss the concept as puerile and of no value seems to me excessive.
Another Martin
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