Re: Middle of the Mystic

From: Sergio Mascarenhas <sermasalmeida_at_mail.telepac.pt>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 11:52:47 +0100


Julian really doesn't like systematic thinking

> Yes, Trotsky, you might be able to gain some mileage out of Sergio's
stuff
> for your version of Greyhawk ... ;-)

What's Greyhawk?

> D&D only has (had?) two alignments, Lawful and Chaotic AFAIK.Your diagram
looks
> like the AD&D version which had four alignments, Lawful, Chaotic, Good,
and Evil.
> Perhaps, AD&D 3rd edition might have six?

I simplly cannot understand the animosity so many role-players have towards TSR and AD&D... given the fact that these same people seem to know very well the gave and to have played it a lot (I don't know about you Julian). I only played AD&D once, and skiped through the rules. It seems to be an interesting game awfully produced, that's all. If enything else goes wrong with AD&D games, it's the fault of the players, not of the game IMHO (BTW, that's what happened in my brief experience with the game). What I don't understand is why, when people want to criticize something, they pick an AD&D example.
Julian, don't throw your AD&D nightmares at me, they're yours, not mine.

> The end result of such a system is, I think, to arbitrarily designate one
lot as "us"
> and another lot as "them". (...) No matter HOW well-intentioned, or
well-reasoned, the
> system might be, it seems inevitable that it will boil down to "us" and
"them".

Julian, just re-read your Glorantha-Digest archives and try to pick the lengthy discussion on wheter trolls and humans might interact in reasonnable terms. You don't need and alignement system 'to designate one lot as "us" and another lot as "them".'
What 'boils (things) down to "us" and "them" ' is not the system, is the players. And, as someone putted it in GD recently with the Irish example, you don't need a system to do it, usually the more similar you are to another creature, the greater the incentive to boil down to "us" and "them". Some people just cannot understand the words 'dialetics', 'tolerance', or even 'interested compromize'.

> There are such things as shamans who are also mystics, and alchemists who
adhere
> to a polytheistic religion, or a monotheistic one. None of these are
*suggested* by
> your diagram, whatever you might say to defend it.

I was clear in stating that no mundane creature could realize perfection in a given belief and remain in the mundane plane. All mundane magical practices share some aspects of all of the basic belief systems. It's up to the cultural manifestation of any given belief system to determine how its followers would react to the non-dominant orientations. (Frex, RW christian churches - monotheists - tend to consider mundanism as a necessary evil, and some aspects of mysticism and spiritualism as an acceptable path). In Glorantha we are certain that the four basic belief behaviors leed to concrete results (aren't we?).
I also stated 'en passant' that there is a difference between the belief system (let's call it the ideology) and the practices that are more connected to that belief system (let's call it the technique). So, you can be a follower of a given deity or pantheon (your ideology) and keep some alchemical and mundane practices (at a technical level).

> I think, Sergio, that your idea that the four basic systems of thought in
Glorantha can
> have impure, mixed forms, which we could give names to, and explain, is
quite good,
> but I doubt very much that this could be usefully reduced to a
two-dimensional
> diagram, except in a nonsensical AD&D version of Mythic Philosophy, which
does,
> however, serve some sort of purpose in that fine game.

At the technical level the four basic belief systems are connected to different practices. These are going to be the realm of HW rules (and they were in RQ, with the exception of Mysticism). So, at this level, the diagram makes sense. It also corresponds to a map of the planes.

At the ideological level it maps basic characteristics of the different cultures that follow one or another of the second-level belief systems. Of course, you don't need the diagram to know that theists take their distances to mundanists (even when they tolerate them). Or that the shaman, used to know and do business with all types of spirits, might think that the all-encopassing, holistic view of the mystic contradicts what his daily shamanic practices teach him. What the diagram gives you is a rational representation of why different, contradictory and sometimes opposing ideologies emerge. It also gives you the basic reasons for their dissent.

Notice that the second-level, mixed-belief-system diagram is not an hardwired construct. The slots do not represent all possibilities. The values of the slots certainly don't categorize all ideologies that exist in Glorantha. And we may look at the axes in the diagram as different continuums, istead of an organization of discrete boxes.

> BTW the missing element in the center isn't the illuminate, but the Man
> Rune.

Nice proposal. BTW, I didn't figure out how to connect the diagram with the runes and how to incorporate chaos into it (I suppose that there shouldn't be place to chaos in it. Chaos forced an illegitimate entrance into Glorantha and dispeled the tiddyness of magic).

Remember, it's only a diagram. Like organigrams or flow-charts, it's only intended to model reality so that I can make sense of it more easily. It's not intended to substitute for the richness it represents. If someone starts to play by the chart, it's that person's mistake, not a fault of the diagram (or of the person that designed it). What we can discuss is wheter the diagram represents Glorantha magic systems and magical cultures accurately. If it, that's good. If it doesn't, scrap it.

All the best,

Sergio


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