The Other Martin raises the need for 'determining which myth is stronger' as a justification for an objective system.
I disagree that you need to determine which myth is stronger directly. Myths (at least the sort of hero tale myths we are worrying about here) are maps of the hero plane more or less. The map is not the territory. When cultures clash, there is more to it than the quality of the map.
Now, sometimes what one culture knows and the other doesn't will really make a huge difference. If you, as GM, want to have this happen ocassionally, or your players manage some cunning exploitation, fine. An excellent example of this is the account of the battle of Moonbroth, where the nomads summoned Oakfed, and sent him to attack the Lunars, and the Lunars where able to convince him he is a loyal son of Lodril and send him back.
But the most important thing is that you can't just talk the mythic talk, you have to walk the heroquest walk as well. Orlanthi can't defeat dragons just by quoting the myth at them, he has to actually do it. And along the way, they can mess up, and die, either because they didn't follow their myths just right, or because they just weren't tough enough. But they still have a dragon defeating technique, so they stand more chance than a culture that doesn't have one (whose heroes have to improvise). In the above example, the Lunars didn't convert Oakfed just by explaining politely to him - they probably had to perform their Lodrili 'taming of the rebellious son' ritual, which was dangerous (but not as dangerous as just fighting Oakfed).
David
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