The problem of Orlanthi boasting, as I understand it, is to make sure you hit the right amount of inflation. Then, when your audience deflates, they will deflate to something reasonable; you don't undersell yourself, but you don't look like Miles Gloriosus, either.
If your audience knows that part of your account is false, they will discount the rest of it.
What is ideal, of course, is to perform deeds so great that bards sing of them; then people have independent confirmation that you're tough.
The other problem is that if you brag too loudly about how tough you are, some guy looking to make a reputation has a motive to take you down a peg, and prove he's tougher than you. I can see a lot of fights getting started when somebody who thinks his exploits are awe inspiring boasts of them, and a smartass but tough 18 year old openly challenges them by making a remark about running shoes:-).
Ray,
Greg Stafford <Greg_at_...> wrote: YGWV
Quoting Mike Holmes <mike_c_holmes_at_...>:
>
> Presentation is everything.
Actually, fact is everything.
Presentation can add color, and perhaps some spin, but to alter the
truth is diminishing.
> I think that the modern analogue for what Greg described would be Public
> Relations. Advertising for the individual. And, though Greg says that it's
> not about lying (you might be called on something at some point),
Lying is verboten.
Honor--a man's word--IS everything. And if that is lost, it is
permanently diminished.
> I'm sure
> that boasting is to some extent about adding "spin" to the description of
> things to make them seem perhaps more impressive than if they were described
> another way.
Sure, we would expect people to do this. But behind his back people will be sayhing, "He's the man who claims a fight is a skirmish, and a skirmish is a battle, and a battle is a war. Now he says he loves that woman forver, but if I were her I'd go for a night-wedding at best."
> Thus a Heortling who once fled from a number of Broo might say, "I am he who
> once lead an army of Broo on a merry chase through the northlands,
> distracting them from the tula, and thus protecting all within."
And from the corner, a man leaning against the wall would say, "Some of us know the difference between running away and leading." And everyone around him would laugh, loudly. "I've never bothered to get my running shoes on before a battle."
Issaries, Inc.
c/o Greg Stafford
1942 Channing Ave, #204
Berkeley, CA 94704 USA
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