re: help

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 07:23:28 -0700 (PDT)


> However some of the things said made me wonder about
> something: I always assumed that in Glorantha the
> gods *do* exist. They exist as independent beings
> just as mortals do. They have will, they have
> agendas, etc.
>
> But is that really so? Or are they 'merely'
> manifestations of the collective
> belief of the people of Glorantha?

There are two answers to this. Both of them are fromt he perspective of a Gloranthan.

The first answer is that the god, compared to any individual Glorantha, is effectively independent of that individual, because that one individual cannot have enough effect on the god for it to be noticable (with some heroic exceptions). So, in this answer, the gods appear, to each individual, to be independent beings with their own existence, will, agendas, etc.

The second answer is that the god, compared to ALL individuals in glorantha, might not be independent. Some Gloranthans argue about this. They don't need to know the answer in order to live, so we don't need the answer in order to play.

The critical point here is that most people on this list stick to an approach of looking at things like the gods from an internal (i.e., inside Glorantha) viewpoint, and refuse to look at them from an external (i.e., from outside Glorantha, what is objectively true) viewpoint, because doing so destroys a lot of the beautiful ambiguity that generate realistic reasons for conflict inside the game. If everyone playing the game were to know that Zorak Zoran really did steal the fire from Yelmalio, their characters would start acting that way. Then we'd be back to The Other Game.



Chris Lemens

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