Quantifying Spirit

From: Greg Stafford <greg_at_glorantha.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:22:13 -0800


Heloo,

>From: Gianfranco Geroldi <giangero_at_yahoo.com>
>Subject: Subject: Imagining Superhumans

>> It is a game mechanic. Naturally there are not any
>> real numbers. It would be like us today trying to
>> calculate how much Grace it would take to getinto
>> Heaven.
>
>Today RW people are still questioning priests to ask
>how many pater nosters and how much money they need to
>spend for the Church in order to gain a place inheaven.
>And sometimes, priests _answer_!

Yes, of course. I remember in the cathechism that was used to brainwash me had an amount of time after each prayer which was, I believe, the amount of time that the prayer would reduce someone's time in purgatory. Let us not forget the wonderous indulgences which could be bought by persons in the Middle Ages to reeuce the sins. The let us look at the section in HQ about shysters, frauds and liars. For centuries persons in positions of power have used their authority to exploit the fearful, ignorant and needy. Some hae, without a doubt, been well intentioned and perhaps even serious about their number mongering. We currently live in a world in which science and its precepts, such as the science of mathematics, are awarded primacy in our beliefs about the immeasurable. This does not mean that has a basis in cosmic fact which is any more real than the number of angles on a pinhead. Yet, as I have aid, it is the language wherewith we have been educated, a pat of our language that we accept it as real. Hence, 10W3.

>I think that even if the answer is futile, the above
>question is *important* and Gloranthans are not
>exception to it.

Regretably, the "above question" is not on this mail an I just always erase old digests to save room on my computer. If you wish, restate it and I will make either another serious atept to talk about it, or maybe just indulge again in word tricks and clever game designer rhetoric.

>> Nonetheless, the numbers attempt to measure
>> SOMETHING. The structure comes from the fact that a
>> W3 always gets three bumps, hence always rolls a
>> critical success. Versus a normal opposition, heat
>> least gets a tie. Hence he is a Master at whatever.
>> And the structure progresses from there.
>
>Yes, but...
>Let's say I am Zzabur.

Bad analogy, because this is like saying "Let's say I am Lucifer." Do you read the comic? Entertaining but handicapped by the necessities of the story to make Lucifer, Michael and even God into discernable, quantifiable entities. Great stories, frankly, but the characters are not the angels and God which I understand to exist. So, I will rephrase it for you for the sake of this cuscussion, and say "Let's say I am a devotee of Zzabur who s so old and knowledgable that I have forgotten my age, my body and no one else is able to tell that I am not, in fact, zzabur."

>Would I not say that "The energies required to cross
>the barrier to the otherside, clearly represents the
>tenth exponent of the Universal Constant of Myth,
>which is mathemathically speaking an irrational number.
>And the Hundreth exponent of the same UCoM represents
>the Miraclemight of St Rokar, while the Tousandth
>expomnent represents the Will of Malkion the
>Prophet and so on"?

You might. You probably would, in order to speak the language of whomever asks the qeustion. Alternately, you may say "To speak with me requires that you have purged your souls to the quantity of sand flakes upon the beach of Logic, and you have dedicated to Him We Cannot Know all the tribulations of you ind before you could talk to me." Or I might just hit you with a stick.  

>> However, there is also an arbitrariness to the
>> numbers as well. An abstraction, a sense of quantity
>> which almost inevitably gets in the way of the
>> story.
>
>Sometimes stories *are* about numbers as well.
>Especially stories involving a certain Zzaburite hero
>and a certain Astronaut hero ;)

Then be in that story and find the numbers. Here's the clue: The true numbers are in the Book of Dust. You can read them with the Eyes of Malkion, or of the Devil, or with the soul of an unborn child.

>> As game designers, we just have to make decisons and
>> do our best.
>
>I am absolutely certain of that.
>My question was not criticism, but maybe a
>suggestion.

Yes, which is how I take it. It is a good question, and I hope that my odd ramblings and arcane posturing this early AM do not deter the query.

Frankly, were an Outer Atomic Explorer to wander through my campaign he'd have to have proved to me already that he could remember any numbers whatsoever after his sojourn in the Void, or else I might just give him the ability of Chaos Mathematics which means he can not count even on his fingers and toes, but might allow him to know exactly when enough soul energy was in a specific place to do a certain thing, even without being able to ay how many that may be.

Sincerely,
Greg Stafford

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