Although there is no authoritative "guide" to Earth, any human being can look at the sky and see that it's blue, for example. Unless one agrees wuth Bishop Berkeley that perception creates reality, we must assume that intelligent beings will perceive points of commonality about their world. *That* is Universal Truth.
Since we don't have the advantage of actually being able to *see* Glorantha (except possibly for Greg, I suppose), a general guide to the world of Glorantha is a good idea. Is, for example, the sky blue? I realize that the sky might be different colors when viewed from different sections of the lozenge, or at different times; perhaps even different races would observe different colors in the same sector of sky. All that would be neat, but the point is that in order to be meaningful it should follow some logical set of rules, even if only that it is magical and capricious.
This is an excellent example of the difference between the scholarly and roleplaying approaches. The scholar views the idea of an authoratative compendium of Gloranthan lore with contempt, knowing that a world which is physically as or more complex than the real one can never be accurately represented; no historian can can view social interactions free of the inherent bias of his or her own culture. There is no "objective viewpoint".
BUT -- in a roleplaying context, there *is* an objective viewpoint: the gamemaster. When I'm running a game I need to be able to decide what the truth is for my own game. NPCs can be presented with differing viewpoints, but when it matters, the GM decides what is real and what is bias.
It seems to me that the idea of subjectivism has been taken too far in the real world, too. While those recording history cannot help but filter it though their own biases and feelings, there are nonetheless things that really happened, and these are universal truths. They may be re-examined, but the basic reality of them cannot be changed.
-->Pete
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Maranci pmaranci_at_tiac.net Malden, MAEditor, Interregnum RPG/Science Fiction APA/magazine -- email for info. Interregnum WWW home page: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/index.html FRP adventures, art and more: http://www.tiac.net/users/maranci/rq.htm
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