Bishop Berkeley

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From: Peter Maranci (pmaranci@tiac.net)
Date: Sun 21 Dec 1997 - 18:22:20 EET

        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@tiac.net Malden, MA
Editor, 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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